The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket [Hardcover]

Paul Schneider (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2000

A history of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Even before the Pilgrims landed in 1620, Cape Cod and its islands promised paradise to visitors, both native and European. In Paul Schneider's sure hands, the story of this waterland created by glaciers and refined by storms and tides-and of its varied inhabitants-becomes an irresistible biography of a place.

Cape Cod's Great Beach, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket are romantic stops on Schneider's roughly chronological human and natural history. His book is a lucid and compelling collage of seaside ecology, Indians and colonists, religion and revolution, shipwrecks and hurricanes, whalers and vengeful sperm whales, glorious clipper ships and today's beautiful but threatened beaches. Schneider's superb eye for story and detail illuminates both history and landscape. A wonderful introduction, it will also appeal to the millions of people who already have warm associations with these magical places.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Billed as the first history of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Elizabeth Islands in 50 years, this animated if loosely organized book blends stories of the region's rich heritage with tales of the author's adventures kayaking the local current-riven waters. A Vineyard resident himself, Schneider begins by describing the culture of the area's Nauset and Wampanoag Indians, noting that they had 125 years of contact with adventurous Europeans before the Mayflower's Pilgrims clambered ashore in Provincetown Harbor in 1620. Schneider identifies the geological machinations of the last ice age, which engulfed the northern half of the continent and sculpted the cape, islands and shoals he clearly loves. He retells the tragedy of the whaleship Essex as he juggles his way through New England's whaling heyday. More contemporary topics--such as the current milieus of the various communities and the ecological ravages of DDT in the 1960s--also emerge and recede in an energetic whirl of information. But Schneider's method is more enthusiastic than rigorous, often clouding the chronology of events. Though his literary prose can be engaging, some readers may tire of his rambling. A history of place is especially prone to fragmentation, and this talented writer has allowed his book to succumb to that weakness. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Cape Cod, and its associated islands, is a storied seascape that has seen come and go the Wampanoag people, the Pilgrims, the whalers. The summer residents now seem a stable presence, but their day, too, will pass when their real estate washes away in a few hundred or few thousand years. Schneider reports on the various inhabitants by kayaking about the sounds, bays, and harbors of the area and by recasting for general interests the voluminous oeuvre on local history. Unlimbering first a natural history of the glaciers that created Cape Cod, Schneider proceeds to the human history, the recorded portion of which began with William Bradford's religious sect. They arrived to a land depopulated by a plague. With the survivors, led by the Wampanoag natives, Bradford arranged a peace that held until King Philip's War of 1675. Schneider freshens these chapters of history with a meditative mix about landscape, history, and people. Despite its encrustations of modern amenities, the Cape Cod region remains an enchanting one, according to Schneider's admiring salute. Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 367 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (May 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805059288
• ISBN-13: 978-0805059281
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #919,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born and raised in Massachusetts, mostly Amherst, a college town in the western half of the state. Went to public high school then Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. After stints working with refugees in Thailand, prep-school students in Switzerland, and a brief career as a wire-service stringer in Kenya, I settled into magazine journalism in New York City. On staff at Esquire, and freelancing all over town, (including Vanity Fair where I met my wife) I eventually found myself writing mostly about environmental issues, primarily for the National Aububon Magazine.

That work led to my first book, The Adirondacks, A History of America's First Wilderness, which was a New York Times notable book of 1997. My second book, The Enduring Shore, A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, was also published by Henry Holt and was well received.

Sometime in between those two books I came across a very brief mention of the Cabeza de Vaca story in an obscure book on the old trails west. I knew immediately that I had to know more about this incredible story of four who survived and crossed America out of 400 who landed in Florida in 1528. That obsession eventually resulted in Brutal Journey, my newest book, which the New York Times called "hard to believe, and impossible to forget."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally a readable book for local history, July 30, 2000

By 

Seano "seanob" (Quincy, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket (Hardcover)

The amazing deluge of tourism each summer truly ignores the elaborate history of some of New England's most beautiful coastline. For many of us who live or travel there when time and traffic allow there is this fine book to fill in the grey areas.

Unfortunately, regional history is not as popular to most readers as a spy novel or biography. This book bounces between the author's journeys in Kayak along the islands and coastline and the chronological history of travellers and settlers to the coast. There are humorous accounts of indian encounters, misguided settlers and an all too unpleasant tale of life aboard the Mayflower. Not all as we had once been told in grammar school.

The endnotes are substantial and the book can at times seem more academic than entertaining. However, I passed this on to two friends and we have laughed and shared our favorite stories over beverages. A good book and a nice read.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wood-slat-porch-with-a-weather-beaten-chair reading, June 12, 2000

By 

"binyamin" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket (Hardcover)

The romantic relationship between people and the land under their feet dates back, as the name suggests, to the Romantics of the 19th century. It was a relationship born of the truth that absence makes the heart grow fonder -- as cities grew, man longed for a natural world that was no longer readily at hand. And Cape Cod, that barren, sandy strip the Pilgrims had fled as soon as practicable, became a summer destination of choice for well-to-do New Englanders.

Paul Schneider's The Enduring Shore is the latest tribute to the Cape from one of its inhabitants-by-choice. And, in keeping with the long tradition of such works, it proclaims two truths: things used to be better, but the charms of the Cape endure all the same.

It is an eminently enjoyable fiction, this pretense that the Cape has always and will ever endure. And Schneider is a past master of the romantic form, sweeping the reader along with a well-crafted mix of local color, geographic history, and maybe-true legends. It is, in sum, wonderful summer reading, particularly for those who have themselves long felt some measure of love for the Cape.

For those who find they have enjoyed Schneider's book, I would recommend also Diana Muir's Reflections in Bullough's Pond, which does for New England as a whole what Schneider has done for the Cape in particular.

Romantic times and sunny days, after all, call for remembrance of things past, with a smile.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book and fun to read, June 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket (Hardcover)

I am a person who has to be "grabbed" and held by a book, or my life takes over and the book gets lost. Paul Schneider's book not only grabs you, it sings to you. It's more than a history; it's a love song to sea and land, and to the weird and complicated people who have made their lives on and out of Cape Cod and the Islands. What I love most about this book is how it goes into history and out again into the landscape. It allows me to be, in my time, intimate with the wind and waves. Schneider is a very funny writer -- the prose keeps you reading at a good clip. But he's also a poet. This book covers the range of emotions and human interest, it holds you with its passion and its love for the land.