The Wordy Shipmates is about the Puritans, John Winthrop and his lot, who came to America, and all the stuff they did. Vowell admires their courage and intelligence without giving them a pass on all the things we don’t like about Puritans – the intransigence, the praying for American Indians to die of plague, etc. It’s more of an essay collection than a history book, with Vowell speaking to her own life and how she has found strength in the writings of the Puritans, plus some fairly predictable party-line remarks on American politics. Plus all the stuff about the Puritans.…
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