Adult/High School-The authors demystify both the political realities and the daily social lives of the New England colonists popularly identified as "Pilgrims." Both casual readers and researchers are offered an engaging and edifying introduction to the actual ramifications of life in the early 17th-century colony. The Deetzes look at how order was maintained, relations with the native people, the roles and maintenance of law and punishment, gender relations, violence, death, and the habits of the hearth and home. While knocking down the mythologies that have taken root across the generations, the narrative supplies images that are just as lively and compelling. Sources are retained as notes at the back so that readers need not follow footnotes, yet have documentation close at hand.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Giving new life to an old myth, James and Patricia Scott Deetz demonstrate that as far as Plymouth and the Pilgrims are concerned, the past is not what it used to be, and probably never was. Meticulous, generous, and irreverent, this work is an instant classic."
--Peter J. Gomes, Harvard University, Formerly Librarian and President of the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth
"Thoughtful, provocative, creative, and inclusive, this book will engage any student of American history and culture. It's the next best thing to time travel."
--Elizabeth Reis, Department of History, University of Oregon, author of Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England
"There is no one who could possibly know more on a firsthand basis about life, love, and death at the 17th century American colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts than Jim Deetz. [This is] a fresh, compelling, and entertaining story of the foundation and early development of a significant segment of early American society."
--William M. Kelso, Director of Archaeology, Jamestown Rediscovery
"James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz envision an exciting new kind of cultural history, shaped by paths they cut through historical archaeology, anthropology, material culture, and social history. The Times of Their Lives should be required reading."
--Robert Blair St. George, author of Conversing by Signs, and professor of history, University of Pennsylvania
"Mythic in power, graceful in presentation, The Times of Their Lives is a gift to the people."
--Henry Glassie, Folklore Institute, Indiana University
"The detailed accounts of superstitions, sexual indiscretions, and criminal proceedings offer an especially fresh perspective on daily life in seventeenth- century America."
--Booklist
"Highly recommended for public and academic libraries."
--Bonnie Collier, Yale Law School Library
"They wore bright colors, drank like fishes and sometimes ran afoul of the law. Mosh-pit patrons at Woodstock II? Nope — we're talking about the first party animals, the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth, Mass."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune
From the Back Cover
"No one is able better to interpret the material culture and lived history of the Pilgrims of Plymouth than James Deetz, and this book is the full harvest of his long and fruitful scholarship. Giving new life to an old myth, Dietz demonstrates that as far as Plymouth and the Pilgrims are concerned, the past is not what it used to be, and probably never was. Meticulous, generous, and irreverent, this work partakes of those same qualities that describe the career of one of America's foremost cultural anthropologists. He has written an instant classic."
--Peter J. Gomes, Harvard University, former Librarian and President of the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth "With its riveting history and graceful prose, The Times of Their Lives will transport readers back to the seventeenth-century world of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At the same time the book urges us to consider the present, especially our tenacious hold on the nation's cherished Pilgrim myths. Thoughtful, provocative, creative, and inclusive, this book will engage any student of American history and culture. It's the next best thing to time travel."
--Elizabeth Reis, Department of History, University of Oregon, author of Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England
"There is no one who could possibly know more on a firsthand basis about life, love, and death at the 17th century American colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts than Jim Deetz. As an archaeologist, he has personally discovered the Plymouth colonists' day to day buried artifacts and, to explain their meaning, developed authentic and engaging living history programs for the thousands of yearly visitors to the Plymouth Colony museum. Add to that Deetz' meticulous journey through the vast store of 17th century personal and public records of the 17th century people of Plymouth, you arrive at a fresh, compelling, and entertaining story of the foundation and early development of a significant segment of early American society."
-- William M. Kelso, Director of Archaeology, Jamestown Rediscovery
"While keeping their eyes trained on the Plymouth Colony, James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz envision an exciting new kind of cultural history, shaped by paths they cut through historical archaeology, anthropology, material culture, and social history. The Times of Their Lives should be required reading."
-- Robert Blair St. George, author of Conversing by Signs, and Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
"Mythic in power, graceful in presentation, The Times of Their Lives is a gift to the people."
-- Henry Glassie, Folklore Institute, Indiana University
Praise for James Deetz:
I read In Small Things Forgotten as a graduate student and have never been able to look at artifacts--or history--in quite the same way. For my students it is still the first step.
-- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Midwife's Tale
About the Author
James Deetz, Ph.D., is the Harrison Professor of Historical Archaeology at the University of Virginia. Perhaps the foremost expert on the archaeology of Plymouth Colony, he is considered one of the "founding fathers" of Historical Archaeology. For eleven years Deetz worked as the Assistant Director of the museum at Plymouth Plantation, where he introduced an innovative interpretive program. He is the author of In Small Things Forgotten and Flowerdew Hundred.
Patricia Scott Deetz is a cultural historian with an M. A. in history from Rhodes University, South Africa. She has worked with her husband as a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia for the past seven years.
