A Voyage Long and Strange: On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and Other Adventurers in Early America

By Tony Horwitz

Book Overview

A rich mixture of scholarship and modern-day adventure that brings the forgotten first chapter of America's history vividly to life.

"Consistently eye-opening and entertaining . . . Horwitz is] as companionable a traveler as anyone would want on a road trip."
--San Francisco Chronicle

What happened in North America between Columbus's sail in 1492 and the Pilgrims' arrival in 1620?

On a visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he doesn't have a clue, nor do most Americans. So he sets off across the continent to rediscover the wild era when Europeans first roamed the New World in quest of gold, glory, converts, and eternal youth. Horwitz tells the story of these brave and often crazed explorers while retracing their steps on his own epic trek--an odyssey that takes him inside an Indian sweat lodge in subarctic Canada, down the Mississippi in a canoe, on a road trip fueled by buffalo meat, and into sixty pounds of armor as a conquistador reenactor in Florida.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312428324
• ISBN13: 9780312428327
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Great Read

I really enjoyed this book. There's a lot of American history that our history teachers tend to gloss over and we get to go along for the ride as Horowitz hunts that history through the North American continent. And this isn't "revisionist" history -- it's history that just isn't told very much. I read it soon after I read Charles C. Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. While it's a lighter read, it was a great follow-up. Horowitz manages to weave history with hilarious anecdotes (both his and those of the early explorers that he's tracking). I really recommend this book to anyone with any interest in American history -- and that's why I've given it to several people.

Like Bill Bryson Only Less "Preachy"

Great combination of history and travel writing. Horowitz makes me want to visit even the most desolate of sites portrayed in his book. Well maybe not Santo Domingo!

The true story about the settling of America

Tony Horwitz does a brilliant job of sifting through the voluminous material available on the exploration and settling of America from the time of Columbus' first voyage to the West Indies in 1492 up through the Pilgrims landing in Plymouth in the early 1600s. He debunks many myths and fascinates us with information that should really be taught to any student in the U.S. before they graduate from High School. We learn that St. Augustine, Florida is really the earliest permanent settlement in the continental United States. It was Abraham Lincoln who proclaimed the last Thursday of November 1863 as Thanksgiving to acknowledge the sacrifices made for the Union -- not as a tribute to the Pilgrims. Horwitz acknowledges that he focused on ten historical episodes rather than attempting a comprehensive survey and it leaves us wanting to find out more. We don't hear about Samuel de Champlain or Henry Hudson, for instance. However, the work is accessible and engrossing and we come away with the knowledge that what is now known as the United States was abuzz with activity, both from indigenous peoples and European Explorers, long before the Mayflower sailed.

Another winner from Tony Horwitz

I have been waiting for this book and I wasn't disappointed. Tony Horwitz has an uncanny ability to make history fun! I plan on sending this book to friends and family who still believe the many myths of history. Keep up the good work, Tony!

Long, Strange, and a Ball of Laughs

Who could have guessed that history (and current events) could be so much fun. Horwitz, whose previous triumphs have included books about Civil War reenactments, travels in the Middle East, and a retracing of Captain Cook's voyages in the South Pacific, turns his gimlet eye on the first European forays into the New World. "Washing up" in Plymouth, Massachusetts one day on a New England road trip, he buys a beer at the Myles Standish Liquor store, beds down at the William Bradford inn, and then mocks (in his mind) the clueless tourists at Plymouth Rock. But as he mulls over his experience, he realizes how little (even as a history major) he knows about the origins of the land that became America. The rest, as they say, is history, and history of a most witty and enlightening kind. Who knew, for instance, that Juan Ponce de Leon came to Florida looking for gold and slaves like everyone else, and not for the Fountain of Youth? or that the man for whom the DeSoto touring car was named was a butcher of unequaled savagery? The first feast in the New World that might appropriately be called Thanksgiving took place in St. Augustine and probably consisted of a stew of salt pork and garbanzo beans. (And there is some contention between Floridians and "the powdered wig" states over who should get credit for the national holiday.) A Voyage Long and Strange is a ball of laughs and a veil of tears--the offhand executions of women and children play out in the same text as deliberations upon whether moose is kosher and whether one should ride the "Trolley of the Doomed" in St. Tourist Trap, Florida. Horwitz goofs some stuff up--he thinks Mormons believe themselves to be descendants of the Nephites--but on the whole this is a fascinating, impossible-to-put-down look at where we came from and what we have become.