Mayflower

From acclaimed historian and biographer Rebecca Fraser comes a vivid narrative history of the Mayflower and of the Winslow family who traveled to America in search of a new world. The voyage of the Mayflower and the founding of Plymouth Colony is one of the seminal events in world history. But the poorly equipped group of English Puritans who ventured across the Atlantic in the early autumn of 1620 had no sense they would pass into legend. They had 80 casks of butter and two dogs but no cattle for milk meat or ploughing. They were ill prepared for the brutal journey and the new land that few of them could comprehend. But the Mayflower story did not end with these Pilgrims'' arrival on the coast of New England or their first uncertain years as settlers. Rebecca Fraser traces two generations of one ordinary family and their extraordinary response to the challenges of life in America. Edward Winslow an apprentice printer fled England and then Holland for a life of religious freedom and opportunity. Despite the intense physical trials of settlement he found America exotic enticing and endlessly interesting. He built a home and a family and his remarkable friendship with King Massassoit chief of the Wampanoags is part of the legend of Thanksgiving. Yet 50 years later Edward''s son Josiah was commanding the New England militias against Massassoit''s son in King Philip''s War. The Mayflower is an intensely human portrait of the Winslow family written with the pace of an epic. Rebecca Fraser details domestic life in the 17th century the histories of brave and vocal Puritan women and the contradictions between generations as fathers and sons made the painful decisions that determined their future in America. This sweeping audiobook leads from a harrowing adventure on the high seas to an inspirational story of societal regeneration. Fraser''s scope is expansive but her sensitive treatment of the Winslow family makes the listener feel present and included.