Customer Reviews

Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

An excellent book. Nick Bunker's "Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History" offers a truly different look at one of American history's best-known and least-understood groups - the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation. Usually, upon hearing "Pilgrims" the first thought is of a bunch of tediously pious guys in funny hats eating turkeys and pumpkin pies with Indians. And even when rescued from such mythology, the Pilgrims are usually presented in books as somehow being quite apart from everything and everyone else, religious refugees with a hazy background, suddenly cast ashore in an isolated, distant wilderness. What Bunker does, based upon deep and meticulous research in primary sources seldom utilized before, is to thoroughly connect the Pilgrims with a vastly complex net of Jacobean religion, politics, commerce, and social customs. He explores who the Pilgrims were and how they arose and how they fit into the larger picture of the Puritan movement in England.

For those who want a narrow, tightly focused, comprehensive study of the voyage of the Mayflower and the first years of the Pilgrims in the New World, this is not the book. But those who want to see the Pilgrims in a new light and appreciate the complexity of their experience, "Making Haste from Babylon" is perfect. I have seen one review that criticized Bunker for being too digressive, but I would say that the reviewer missed the point - this study is about the world that produced the Pilgrims and the English politicians and businessmen who supported their venture in the New World, the same people who in succeeding years supported the larger Puritan emigration that transformed New England into a solid, dynamic extension of British presence.

Bunker pays particular attention to the interplay between the Pilgrims and the native peoples of eastern New England. He cites two elements of this interaction which perhaps had the most profound consequences: beavers and cattle. Beaver skins obtained through trade with the Indians eventually provided a strong economic incentive for continued (and expanded) English mercantile support of the Pilgrims (and their Puritan successors). Cattle provided "engines" for plowing and fertilizer for improved agricultural yields, but also required radically different land use that put Pilgrims and Indians on a collision course.

Nick Bunker never loses sight of the importance of the physical world in shaping the Pilgrim experience. Over several years, the author visited almost every remaining site relevant to the Pilgrims, both in England and in America, exploring not only like these places were like four hundred years ago and are like today, sometimes buried under later development, sometimes almost untouched.

If Amazon allowed a rating of six stars, I would give this book a six.

History, we know, is not an isolated story. It's affected by an amalgam of social, economic, political, and religious events even the smallest of which can change the world. Take the Stewart kings of England and their love of fashionable beaver hats. Who would think a couple foppish rakes could change the history of the world? But indeed they did with the help of a couple of wars that eliminated trading sources and a small group of religious idealists seeking freedom. Making Haste From Babylon by Nick Bunker is so very much more than a history of those Pilgrims. It transports you to the 16th century England that created them.

The accession of James I and his intolerance for the Puritan Separatists drove them to escape to Holland. Curiously, the punishment for Separatism was banishment, but it was illegal to leave the country. Robert Cecil, Secretary of State, sensed trouble looming regarding the jurisdiction of the Church over civil matters so it was easier to just let them go. Henrys II & VIII had quite enough of that, thank you very much.

The Separatists settled in Leiden and found themselves tied to an urban economy which gave them no social freedom, no education for their children and fears of civil unrest. They worked endlessly in poor conditions with little to eat and exposure to industrial disease. The return of Holland's war with Papist Spain threatened even the religious freedom they sought. While they worshiped freely in Holland, they had to go into exile beyond the Atlantic to establish their ideal community of economic liberty, social equality, self governance and just a little bit of England.

Nick Bunker's use of primary resources and his expanded scrutiny of secondary sources make this a truly scholarly work. In turn, his journalistic style makes it so very easy to read. He delivers a meticulous exploration of the lives of the Pilgrims before they ever set sail. The author investigated and explored all the English locations associated with the Pilgrims on foot or on a bike--at least twice! He delved through archives and church records that make your eyes water just thinking of the 400 years of dust he stirred up. Exploration of U.S. locations, Holland, La Rochelle & Ulster exhibit a thoroughness bordering on obsession.

It's not until the last quarter of this book that we see the life of the Pilgrims in New England. Even then, we pass over the trials and tribulations and focus how they persevered to establish a community capable of producing the return on investment that their investors sought. The Pilgrims in their Calvinist zeal invented the model environment that nurtured the new markets which opened up a mere eight years after they arrived and ensured the survival of those who followed them to America. If you want something to pick up where Mr. Bunker leaves off, I highly recommend Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower. But read this first, it's a comprehensive work of genius and a delight to read.

This should not be the first book one reads about the Plimouth Plantation. It should be the second book you read. That's because this book does not tell you very much that tells the story of the colonists. In fact, it is almost as if the author went out of his way to avoid writing very much that tells the story. He assumes that you know it well.

However, in this book you will find a great deal of background that answers the critical question of WHY things happened. This is rarely seen material on this side of the Atlantic. For example, there was mob violence in Leiden close to where Bradford and other Separatists lived in 1617 - and that would help contribute to their desire to leave Europe altogether. Some have criticized this book because of its many threads - I rejoice in the threads because they provide the background I need to understand why things happened the way they did.

In lieu of the straight narrative history that so many reviewers erect as a straw man, Bunker provides thousands of often-very-interesting threads that he attempts to weave together into an evocative tapestry. Simon Schama did this successfully with "Citizens," his history of the French Revolution.

Unfortunately, Bunker falls short. All of the things he writes about undoubtedly really happened at the times he says they happened, but at some point, the linkages with the other facts he adduces fail. I really had trouble with this linkage, for example: at one point, some Pilgrims visited Plymouth, where Bunker's source says they had help from "divers" people (period, end of source). In my mind, this does not justify an extended disquisition on two residents of Plymouth who may -- or may not -- have helped them. No other connection established.

I was leery when he started the book with lengthy conceit about an eagle flying over the land the Pilgrims would inhabit, in order to provide a topographic introduction. But he could not resist providing lots of details on the eagle's hunting preferences, a mass of facts that otherwise seemed to play no role in the book except to appeal to the eagle demographic. At a certain point, I wanted to say, "Enough with the damn eagle, already."

I give this book three stars for the depth of his research and the intrinsic interest of many of the facts he unearths. He loses two stars for his inability to tie his notecards together into a book.

(For a much better book on the origins of the early English settlers of northeast America, see "Albion's Seeds" by David Hackett Fischer.")

At first glance I didn't think I would stay with this book. (I bought it because I had seen the author interviewed on BookNotes on TV.) However, it quietly pulled me in and I found myself reading the fairly long book within a week! It gives one a good understanding of the circumstances surrounding the Mayflower travelers in England and Holland and what prompted them to make the trip. The author has done tremendous research. He pulls it all together and focuses on people who come and go throughout the book. He explains the conditions of the times, how the Pilgrims were affected by those conditions, and why they decided to travel. The author's research included trips to New England where he found actual locations about which the Pilgrims wrote. He also studied the British Archives, and many libraries not commonly known, but where he found information that was previously unknown. He deals with the Pilgrims in England and Holland as well as after they arrived in New England, and with the Indians and how both groups connected. This book will be of interest to people who are interested in early American history, mainly because it is so well grounded in the events that took place before the Pilgrims landed.

Since I have ancestors among the earliest settlers, I was eager to learn more about why they left England and their early life in the Colonies. An ad in The Economist encouraged me to buy the book, but overall it wasn't as satisfying as I hoped.

There is no shortage of research in this work--an amazing amount--and I certainly learned a lot about the political and religious climate in England and Europe at the time, plus many side issues I'd never considered like the shipping industry and the goals of ship owners and captains. The whole look at trading on the high seas--the competition, the ports, the difficulties and rewards--was elaborately presented, and would probably be more fascinating to some than it was to me. I did find it interesting that captains went searching for potential emigrants to fill the ship with paying customers on the way to the new world where loading up with products for trade back at home was the primary goal of the trip. Apparently, they made quite a case for the benefits of colony life to get bookings. The business of transporting early colonists was a new and unexpected view.

There was also considerable detail about the leaders of early groups of settlers, their actions and possible motivations. What I did get from the book was a more practical and unromantic view of the activities of the time than we generally find, and I value that, but what I missed was any human connection that encouraged me to keep turning the pages. In other words, it seemed rather a cold-eyed and at times, somewhat scattered, approach to the subject, which offered many facts, but no `story'. It is the story, even in a non-fiction work, that keeps the reader reading. Even as a business case for getting the folks across the pond to mine the many resources in the new world, it lacked a common thread that pulled the reader forward. I give the book four stars largely for the prodigious amount of research and presentation of the more practical reasons for building the Colonies. I learned from the book and came away with some interesting new insights, but found getting through it a bit of a struggle.

There's a lot of fascinating information here, and I'd say it's well worth the read. The only real problem is that Bunker is trying to do a narrative history but doesn't quite have the writing chops to pull it off. There are pop-history writers who have managed this trick (e.g. Shelby Foote, who, it's worth noting, was well established as a novelist before he turned his hand to history) but unfortunately Bunker isn't one of them. He skips around a lot in space and time and tries for poetic descriptions that fall flat. The book is much more informative, and a much better read, in the sections where the author sticks to workmanlike prose without embellishment. All that being said, there's a wealth of research here that has never been presented anywhere else, and anyone with an interest in the Puritan era in both England and America should check it out.

I feel kind of badly giving this book only three stars, because it was well-written and interesting. But the level of detail was excruciating. It would be appropriate for an academic treatise, but this book seems to be for a popular audience. In that case, I say way too much information. It feels as if I had to read about every single person alive in the 1600s. And do I need ten pages on the quality and making of beaver hats?
The book could have EASILY been shortened by at least 100 pages, without losing any of the story or history.
As it was, I can say that it was an interesting read, but can't honestly say that I "enjoyed" it. It was too much like reading a very long college textbook. Since I graduated about thirty years ago, I'm beyond that now.

Bunker's engaging prose and thorough research give readers a new look at the Pilgrims, set in their English/Dutch social and religious milieu. Not at all a dry history, his book delves into the background and personality of the principal Pilgrims and their families. Well worth the time and money.

I found "Making Haste..." to be filled with here to fore unknown aspects of the how and why these people we call "Pilgrims" came together and made their way to North America. I see Mr. Bunker's findings as a starting point for others to begin looking at a broader range of source documents so that we may more fully understand our heritage in a larger context. That context includes the various devices he uses to give one a sense of the lay of the land along the New England coast, in Yorkshire and in Holland. Another important element brought to light is the cross cultural nature of the individuals involved in conceiving of and executing the plan for the colony. As to further testimony, I first read "Making Haste" from my local public library's collection and have since purchased a copy for myself.