Customer Reviews

The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity

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Be warned, if you're looking for a history of King Philip's War then this is not the book for you. Instead what Lepore is investigating is the ways that colonial New Englanders conceived of the war and, by extension their identity. As part of the new wave of cultural history that is coming out of the universities this book represents what is great and frustrating about that movement. On one level the book is, at times, a great look at how early white New Englanders conceived of their identity, the lengths to which they would go to defend this identity, and the ways in which they would justify this defense. Like great cultural history it gives us a vivid peak into the minds of the people it studies, thereby giving us a better understanding of how they thought and lived. On the other hand the book is, at times, frustrating in that it contains elements of the worst aspects of post modern history. Lepore gets carried away sometimes and lets her study drift too far into the realms of philosophy or literary criticism. Two examples I think illustrate this trend. At one point Lepore spends several pages in a great examination of the contradiction that the colonists felt: on one hand they feared that proximity to the native Americans would turn them into savages, on the other hand if they moved to exterminate the natives then they would lose that quality of justice and mercy that defined them as Englishmen. After laying out this excurtiating argument Lepore tritely concludes that the solution to the problem was that the Colonists would wage a war against the natives and then write histories of it that would justify their actions. While this is undoubtedly what happened it doesn't pass muster as a historical solution to the colonists dillema. While it makes literary and, to some degree logical, sense to us the solution Lepore provides isn't one that a colonist genuinely in a moral quandry would use. The very cynicism of the strategem makes it a violation of the moral guidelines that the colonists saw themselves as possesing. Another example is in a description of a New Englander who visits the bones of King Philip on display and steals Philips jawbone. Lepore asks why he did that instead of some other act of defilement such as breaking the skull or spitting on it. Her conclusion is that the man stole the jaw in order to shut Philip up. Again, while this is an apt literary analysis, it seems dubious that the thief was motivated by a desire to symbolicly shut up the skull. It could just as easily be true that the man wanted a souvenir and that the jawbone was the most easily removed piece of the skull. History is not literature and while the new trend of postmodernism and cultural history can provide us with a lot of insight into the past authors must be careful to avoid the mistakes that Lepore makes in treating historical documents as PURELY literary works without any connection to real people or events. Still for these few flaws Lepore has produced an interesting and useful book. As a stand alone about King Philips war it is limited in it's usefullness but in conjunction with another book about the war or a history of early New England it provides us with an informative glimpse into the mind of early Americans.

Three centuries ago, New England Native Americans were forced into war with the English colonists who had been gradually destroying the native economy by stealing their land, interfering with their hunting, fishing, and farming, etc. The resulting war, known as King Philip's War, decimated the English population and very nearly rid New England of whites entirely. English technology and European diseases ultimately won out over theWampanoags and their allies; there was never again an "Indian threat" in New England. "The Name of War" recounts the struggle as told in English accounts; official documents, diaries, and letters. Author Jill Lepore makes the point that history is always written by the victor. What makes the retelling of King Philip's War so one-sided is the fact that the conquered, the Native American tribes, had no written language in which to tell their side of the story. Very few natives of that time could read or write English and, if they left any accounts of the war, they have never been discovered. Lepore goes on to show that what subsequent generations of Americans thought about the war was based entirely on the writings of the colonists and later, anglo scholars and writers. Their view of the Native American ranged from pagan devil-worshippers, as shown by the Mathers and other early religious leaders, to Noble Savage (Cooper) and finally, Vanishing American (The Curse of Metamora). These attitudes, calcified in books and plays, became the stones upon which later White treatment of Indian nations in other parts of the country were based. The final confrontation at Wounded Knee two hundred years after King Philip's War, had its birth in the earliest chronicles of the seventeent-century. This book is a must for all who want to understand the basis for the disastrous Indian-White relations of the last three centuries .For those of us who make a living through writing, the book reminds us of the power of words and theawesome responsibility authors have to use those words wisely.

If you are looking for a narrative history of King Philip's War, you will not find it here. Instead you will find something much more interesting and more important: an intelligent analysis of the cultural issues that caused the war, caused it to be fought in the way it was, and caused it to be treated in contemporary writing as it was. It not only explicates how the New Englanders of the time "justified" their conduct of the war, and their conduct toward the Native Americans generally, but also reasons or speculates persuasively on how the Native Americans viewed the same events. Readers more familiar with the chronological "facts" of the war might find the book somewhat more accessible, but such knowledge isn't a prerequisite to understanding its purpose and argument. Even if one has little knowledge of the war's events, this book is a rich and insightful read for anyone taking it on its own terms. Be forewarned, however: many of the insights regarding New England's European ancestors are neither flattering nor inspiring.

Warning up front, this is not a traditional history book. The book is insistently non-narrative, it doesn't even talk about how the war ends.

The book recalls a 300 year history of the stories Americans have written down regarding the blood spilt by Puritans and Indians in 1675-76. There is even a brief section about what was written down on rocks by Indians. Instead of getting the author's 'version' of the story, we are invited to speculate on the patterns revealed by the evolving perspectives recorded for posterity.

To give you a sense of what Lepore writes about, the book opens at the end of the war. We read the verbatim account of a 17th century Puritan eye witness to a ritual torture execution. The torture, performed by victorious Indian allies of the Puritans upon a defeat Indian captive, is probably familiar, if uncomfortable. Rather than investing the story with traditional emotional energy, Lepore asks, what is this pious Puritan doing watching and assenting to the torture? Why does the Puritan write it down? What guilt does the Puritan wash away? Is the Puritan enjoying himself?

Again, this isn't a history. You won't find out who is right or wrong, who was brave and wise, or even a great deal about what happened. You might get a whole new perspective on 'war', though.

The book is probably an excellent 'introduction' to American history. It certainly got me interested in 17th century Massachusetts. After reading 'the Name of War', I really wanted to know more events of 1675-76 and emailed the author (easily found via a web search) for a good 'history' to read. She suggested 'Webb's 1676, which was an equally excellent book. Of course, 1676 made me want to read another....

This book was a real joy to read. I put it on my wish list after seeing the author speak on C-Span. Her understanding of the scope, magnitude and ramifications of this early American war came across. As a matter of fact, it was more her passion for the information that drove me to get the book than the subject matter. Well, the book didn't disappoint. Her writing is very readable and she conveys a great deal of information in just a little space.

I would be remiss if I didn't add that, as other reviewers have pointed out, she doesn't tell a linear history. That means that you, and I (I'm hooked on the topic now), will have to seek out other sources.

Settlers had barely been established in New England for a generation when relations with the Native American Algonquin, Nipmucks, Narragansett, and Wampanoag tribes erupted into all out warfare. The Indians were resisting expansion by the English for fairly prosaic reasons - they wished to maintain as much of their own way of life as possible. The English Puritan settlers under the leadership of the Mather's saw things more profoundly spiritual, and if they could not get the 'savages' to forego their heathen ways then, by God!, they certainly were not going to allow Indians to interfere with the proper pursuits of God fearing people. Misunderstandings, mistrust, and missed opportunities for communication; whatever the origins, there is only one thing to call it - THE NAME OF WAR.

King Philips War (1675-1676) was the name and it was bloody. Jill Lepore tells us that in a little over a year there were more casualties in this conflict, in proportion to the population, than in any American war since. Although the outcome was an eventual victory by the settlers, this was only after the Indians had attacked over 30 New England towns.

In addition to descriptions of the battles, we get insights into the principals, namely Philip (a.k.a Metacom), chief of the Wampanoags, and the Mather's - Increase and Cotton. These individuals are representative of the extreme positions of cultural antagonism that characterized the war. Interestingly, Lepore highlights some of the 'cross-cultural' stories - Indians who became Christians and whites who adopted native customs. Other interesting issues that are explored are:

> The story of Mary Rowlandson's captivity and specifically the role that Nipmuck Indian James Printer played in negotiating her release.

> The different accounts of the demise of Philip. It's treatment and symbolism for both the whites and the Indians.

This differential treatment of history is a point that the author develops on. We are reminded that victors get to tell their history; this is especially true when the vanquished are Indians who did not have their own writing and very few of whom spoke English. The telling of the story with reference to Native American source documents is therefore absent. Nevertheless, there is an awareness of the reality of another perspective, and Lepore does it justice by use of writings by 'pro-Indian' whites.

Lepore shows that many of the settlers tried to define themselves through telling their story of the war. The importance of history was not lost on them, nor was the significance of their role in it. This explains Increase Mather's anxiety to finish his history of the war before a rival, and puts his disappointment with the books failure in London into context. Mary Rowlandson's story, which when published in 1682, became our first best-seller is also seen in this light.

A tradition of history writing stretching back through the centuries; a tradition that THE NAME OF WAR does nothing but honor.

The difficulties that I had with the book (repetitiousness, tediousness and a predilection for fanciful metaphors, speculation and conclusions) could be attributed to a promising young authoress in need of an rigorous editor. Or so I thought. But Mr. Wood in his Review of the book in the NY Rev of Books who saw these same defects suggests that these difficulties may represent a trend. He even puts a label on it. "Post modern history". I hope not!

While a fascinating topic I know little about, this book was very hard to read. It is definitely not for history lovers who want to be introduced to King Philips War and the times around it. Rather, it is for readers who already know all the facts they want to know and who want to read a detailed discussion of the relationship between English colonists and the local Native Americans.

The main theme of the book is interesting, and the author does have a fresh point of view. But she hammers her point so hard she has managed to drive the life out of the book.

The decision to discard a linear time scale in the book was very distracting, especially for this reviewer who was not that well versed in the actual time course of events.

On a positive note, the decision to include direct quotes from writers of the period with intact spelling was a great one, these tidbits into the past are what ultimately make the book worth reading.

It's said that the second historian was the first revisionist. In other words, to some extent any and every telling of history reveals as much about the historian as it does the history. But for as much as the telling of history is always interpretive, it is also entirely possible for an historian to confront, recognize, and largely neutralize her own interpretive biases; while she need not abandon or apologize for her point of view, nevertheless it is her responsibility to present all the relevant historical facts -- especially those that might cast doubt upon her interpretations and agendas -- and then argue her case with all of the relevant information on the table. That is the difference between interpretive history and deceptive or misleading polemic.

Lepore accomplishes only polemic here, then, in that she presents as supporting evidence for her biases only her own highly questionable interpretations of the semantics of the colonists' own writings on King Philip's War. She is hermeneutically daft, asserting a self-contained truth within those writings that is simply absurd. Texts (especially in the case of the very personal diary entries, private letters, and firsthand accounts that constitute the overwhelming majority of the colonists' writings on King Phillip's War) do not and cannot contain some absolute, inescapable meaning that imposes itself upon the reader. Texts communicate their real meaning only when referred to the indigenous contexts (social, political, religious, philosophical, linguistic, psychological, etc.) that produced them; when removed from those contexts and read in ignorance of them, the reader must of necessity substitute the contexts and agendas of her own experience for the authentic contexts, so that the texts will appear to have radically different meanings than they really do -- they will seem to mean whatever the interpreter wants them to mean.

And what does Lepore want the Puritans' writings to mean? What is her agenda here? Essentially, it is portray the Puritan colonists of 17th century Massachusetts as despicable hypocrites. Now, as I said, if that's her agenda and her bias, that's fine; but it is acceptable for her to present the conclusions born of that agenda and bias as history only on the condition that they are argued in light of all the evidence that might call them into question. Lepore fails on this count. Again, she confines the supporting evidence she provides for her theses to her own highly speculative interpretations of the colonists' writings; as other reviewers have noted here, then, this book is much closer to deconstructionist literary criticism than it is to history. She misses the forest for the trees: she makes no attempt to check her interpretive biases against the broader historical narrative that is the context of King Phillip's War.

For example, in 1622 the natives around the Jamestown settlements in Virginia attempted to eradicate the presence of the colonists, through a surprise act of genocide that followed eight years of peaceful coexistence. The attack ultimately resulted in the deaths of two-thirds of the roughly 1200 colonists in Virginia at the time, and sent a powerful shock through the other New World colonies and their groups of sponsors across the Atlantic. The natives committed their genocide at Jamestown only two years after the Plymouth colony was founded; it is unquestionable, then, that from the earliest years onward the Massachusetts colonists' attitudes toward their native neighbors would have been colored (and rightly so) by a great deal of suspicion and mistrust in light of the knowledge of what the Virginia natives had done to the Jamestown settlers -- only fifty years before King Phillip attempted essentially the same thing. Yet Lepore never once mentions the genocide in Virginia, and does not recognize its immense significance for the relations of the English and the natives in Massachusetts fifty years later.

To name another example, Lepore offers no analysis whatsoever of the nature of the Puritan faith of the Massachusetts colonists, and how that faith affected their conduct in the war. She does mention their faith in a non-specific way, when it serves to imply a monstrous hypocrisy on the part of the colonists; but never is an astute or sympathetic understanding of their religion presented, and since the early Massachusetts colonies were communities of an almost monastic fervor, devotion, and asceticism, Lepore simply ignores an immensely important factor in their motives and reasoning during King Phillip's War. In its place, she asserts that the colonists fought to preserve their "Englishness;" in support of this idea, she presents some diary entries and editorials of the day in which the colonists wrote of their fear of becoming like the savages, should their common life in the New World continue in the direction they thought it was headed. But it seems perfectly clear to me that Lepore has grossly misinterpreted those writings. The colonists did not actually think that their assimilation into the native culture and way of life was real possibility: the warning that they might "become like the savages" was not a cultural apprehension of theirs, but rather the sort of hyperbole so often used in Christian homilies and catechisms and pastoral essays intended to exhort the faithful. The Massachusetts Puritans were not afraid of becoming Indians. They were afraid of losing their faith, losing the Christian path through life that they had sacrificed so much to preserve. They were afraid of any compromise or waning of the Christian zeal and austerity of their near-monastic lives. After all, it was in order to preserve the Christian life that they had left England in the first place, decades earlier: they had first settled in Holland after the English anathematized them, and then left for the New World when they saw their faith diluted by worldly comforts and distractions while living on the Continent. So to me, the idea that they fought the natives in King Phillip's War to defend their "Englishness" is simply preposterous. Englishness was something they had willingly left behind to purse their religion, and played no more of a role in most of their lives and motives than that of superficial, sentimental cultural orientation. I think it's deceptive for Lepore even to pose the question, "why were the English really fighting?" as though it requires some subtle expert analysis: the colonists fought the natives because the natives were trying to kill them... it's as simple as that.

There are many more examples of Lepore's highly selective consideration of the historical record, and highly questionable reasoning and interpretation. But it is not possible to argue them satisfactorily in a review such as this, of course: to respond adequately I would have to write a book of my own (as I've already made a good beginning of doing), taking Lepore point by point. One thing I'll grant her is that she presents her source material openly, with no attempt to conceal certain passages that might be interpreted any number of other ways than those she has chosen. But again, the biases and misunderstanding that a 21st century American will inevitably bring to any reading of texts produced by 17th century Puritans render any approach to understand their conduct of King Phillip's War solely by a consideration of those documents a myopic, naïve, misguided effort, and doomed to failure.

To neglect to convey to the reader the atmosphere of fear in which both parties lived is to ignore a significant factor in their behavior. Lepore comes closest to recognizing this when she has the Indians say to Roger Williams that "they are in a very strang way" as a reason for the killing in Rhode Island, where settler and native had lived more or less peaceably for forty years.