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Summary: Captivating tale of America's first English town
Review: All of us heard the John Smith/ Pocohontas tale in grade school. What is most interesting is that the basic folklore is true. Pocohontas did save John Smith from execution from her father. What was most interesting about this wonderful book is that the battle for survival against the elements and hostile Indian tribes lasted many years. Pocohontas did not make lasting peace between Europeans and Indians, but merely saved one important man. The Indians, justifiably fearing the settlers, kept trying sunsequently to end their existence through open war, false friendship and ambush, and even by poisoning their food.John Smith, the professional soldier among the settlers, both respected and distrusted the Indians. It was his wariness that kept the settlers alive. Eventually, despite many deaths from disease and battle, the settlers survived long enough to outlast the Indians' desire to see them dissapear. Ultimately the longer the settlers survived the more came, eventually being too large a popultaion to be defeated. Price's book is a testament to how fragile that first colony was and what might have been had they been wiped out as was the Roanoke colony was, some 20 years earlier. What is also interesting is that the first U.S. city, Jamestown, was a commercial operation, set up to look for gold primarily. The United States owes its existance largely to capitialism not religious freedom. While others came later for religious tolerance, Jamestown was an attempt by a private company to see what riches could be exported to England. Overall a great book.
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Summary: Fascinating, Accesible Account of the History
Review: David A. Price has written a compact, fascinating tale that focuses tightly on John Smith, Pocohontas and the first two decades of the Virginia colony in Love and Hate in Jamestown. The author manages to include much recent scholarship while keeping the narrative quite accesible. It is not the wonderful romp that Big Chief Elizabeth by Giles Milton is as its perspective is not as large and the writing not quite as juicy. Still, the tale told by Price is an important one and a he tells it well as he makes a strong case for the veracity of John Smith's account of events and Smith's influence on the future of the country that would become America. Jamestown is always an interesting story and this book does not fail it.
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Summary: Fascinating and Timely
Review: David Price vividly evokes the experience of the Jamestown settlers in this exhaustively researched tale. The personalities jump off the page through well chosen excerpts of diaries and letters. This book also debunks some popular myths about Smith and Pocahontas; which adds to the intrigue as the truth is indeed stranger. Now almost three hundred years hence, the essentials of human nature under extreme stress were the same and that is what keeps this story current and riveting. "Reality" TV pales in comparison.
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Summary: A Very Good Read
Review: I enjoyed this book very much. It is well-written and the stories are very interesting.
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Summary: What really happened at Jamestown
Review: I learned my American history in grade school and high school in the 50s and early 60s, when all of the early leaders were courageous and only interested in liberty and justice. Throughout the years since then, revisionist historians have given us a different, and often darker, picture of what happened in the early colonial times. There's no quarrel from me on that score, because I feel that only a nation which is capable of confronting its past mistakes can move on to a better future. This book, about the founding of Jamestown, gives us a "warts and all" view of the settlement and its earliest founders, with emphasis on John Smith. The relations with the indigenous population is covered extensively, and we see a far different side of the story than I was spoonfed in grade school. Our forefathers were, to a large extent in Jamestown, only interested in extracting the supposed mineral wealth which just "lay around" for the taking, and they thought that the natives would have no problem with that, even as the colonists settled in their ancient territories. We get an extremely well written tale, one that doesn't stint on telling the darker side of both settlers and natives, and they both appear rather evenly matched in attitudes, although the natives were more concerned with the land, and the settlers with the gold they expected to find. This colony of Jamestown was one of the beginnings of the English settlement of North America, and as such it is very important in our national history. We should read these books that remove our early student "blinders", and still appreciate what was accomplished under some extremely adverse conditions. I may not like a lot of the settlers I met in the pages of this book, but I have come to admire them, even as I admire the fortitude of the natives who confronted them on their home territoty.
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Summary: Best Book of the Year
Review: Love and Hate in Jamestown gets my vote for a National Book Award. It is easily on par with the outstanding "In the Heart of the Sea" from a couple of years ago. It is that good. Fast-paced, engagingly written, massively entertaining and, most surprisingly in this PC age, very even-handed.
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Summary: A Readable Book of Interest to All
Review: Love and Hate in Jamestown is an appropriate title for this fascinating book. Details of the love between John Rolfe and Pocahontas that developed into marriage, a trip to England, and her untimely death are provided. We are also provided with details of the uneasy relationship between the native Americans and the English settlers as they each tried to put up a front of friendship with the other. If the book has a hero, it would be John Smith who dealt with the environment in Jamestown, Virginia, as it was, not as the settlers wanted it to be. Many of the settlers were "gentlemen" who knew nothing about getting their hands dirty in work. Looking for gold was first and foremost in their minds. Among the settlers were workers and shirkers. Initially, food was provided for all from a common storehouse, but this method didn't encourage everyone to do their share of work. Jealously and envy were enemies of the settlers as to who they wanted as a leader. Not only was there hate towards the common enemy, the native Americans, but towards each other as well. Author David Price believes the story of Smith being saved by Pocahontas to be authentic. History is about people who lived in a different period under different circumstances. This is the story of America's beginnings told in a most effective manner.
Rating:
Summary: A Readable Book of Interest to All
Review: Love and Hate in Jamestown is an appropriate title for this fascinating book. Details of the love between John Rolfe and Pocahontas that developed into marriage, a trip to England, and her untimely death are provided. We are also provided with details of the uneasy relationship between the native Americans and the English settlers as they each tried to put up a front of friendship with the other. If the book has a hero, it would be John Smith who dealt with the environment in Jamestown, Virginia, as it was, not as the settlers wanted it to be. Many of the settlers were "gentlemen" who knew nothing about getting their hands dirty in work. Looking for gold was first and foremost in their minds. Among the settlers were workers and shirkers. Initially, food was provided for all from a common storehouse, but this method didn't encourage everyone to do their share of work. Jealously and envy were enemies of the settlers as to who they wanted as a leader. Not only was there hate towards the common enemy, the native Americans, but towards each other as well. Author David Price believes the story of Smith being saved by Pocahontas to be authentic. History is about people who lived in a different period under different circumstances. This is the story of America's beginnings told in a most effective manner.
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Summary: Facts More Interesting Than Fiction
Review: More untruths have been told about Jamestown than about any other part of the early history of America. The truth as presented here is more interesting than fiction.
This is a scholarly but very readable investigation into the history of John Smith and his contribution to Jamestown as well as to the later settlement in New England.Smith's intelligence, talents and personality as described by the author portray a fascinating man who was ahead of his time in many ways.
John Smith was a published author in England and provided early factual descriptions and information about Virginia. He was an able, practical and strong leader who almost singlehandedly guided the fledgling colony through the first two years (1607- 1609).
The early seventeenth century with its European class consciousness and strife between classes comes alive in this book. The daily struggles and rigors of life for the colonists who were sent to find gold are described in detail.
With the majority of the country believing the Disney portrayal of Smith and Pocahontas, it is refreshing to know them as they were. If only this research and book could have come a hundred years earlier!
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Summary: Love and Hate in Jamestown
Review: Once you get past the mass market title you will find this to be a remarkably enjoyable and easy to read history of the Jamestown Colony, beginning in 1607. The star character is Capt. John Smith, who comes across as someone you would really, really like to have by your side in any dangerous situation. But - at first at least - he was not the boss. Indeed, some of those above him seem not to have the sense they were born with. But they did have what was important to the company back in England: Royal Blood. Read how Capt. Smith, in spite of the odds, managed to save the colony, how he met and befriended the brave Pocahontas (who saved his life twice and the lives of many other settlers, and whose picture ought to be on a U. S. coin (perhaps in 2007)), and how he was essentially forced to return to England. His leaving practically spelled doom for the colonists, some of whom had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive. Pilgrim & Mayflower buffs: To me, this book pointed out very clearly that perhaps the biggest mistake the Pilgrims would make in 1620 was in not hiring Capt. John Smith to be their military leader when they had the chance (no reflection on Myles Standish, who did an outstanding job, but didn't have the experience). All in all a magnificent book and one that ought to be required reading to all with an interest in American history.
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