Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation [Anglais] [Broché]

This sparkling book retells a beloved tale in modern terms. Journalist Price's subtitle suggests that the book might be only about John Smith and Pocahontas-who "crossed into one another's cultures more than any other Englishman or native woman had done"-as well as about Pocahontas's eventual husband, John Rolfe. Fortunately, the book ranges more widely than that. Price relates the entire riveting story of the founding of Virginia. Smith is of course at the center of the tale, because rarely did a colonial leader so bountifully combine experience, insight, vision, strength of character and leadership skills to overcome extraordinary odds. But no one will come away from this work without heightened admiration also for the natives, especially Chief Powhatan, and greater knowledge of the introduction of a third people, African slaves, into the Chesapeake. The book's leitmotif is the interaction of differing cultures and men, like the British gentry, whom Smith scorned for refusing to adapt to hard colonial labor, and the wily Indians, who resorted to starving out the colonists and in 1622 massacred many of them. If there's a fault in a work built unobtrusively on the best scholarship, it's Price's insistence that we see Virginia principally as a place that rewarded courage and hard labor-for white men-in the service of self-advancement and personal liberty. Such a place it was. But it was also for all participants a site, at the start of the nation's history, of danger, horror and death. This is a splendid work of serious narrative history. 2 maps.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Adult/High School--A richly flavored, fascinating narrative of the first two decades of the Jamestown settlement. Price has drawn on a wealth of primary sources, but details don't interrupt the flow of the story. As a mercenary in the Netherlands and Romania, and a slave in Turkey, Smith learned the importance of communicating in new languages and understanding unfamiliar cultures. He developed the skills that would later enable him to stand between the fragile new colony and disaster. The author describes the establishment of the Virginia Company and provides intriguing portraits of the new colonists. Parts of the tale sound surprisingly modern. Fearful that bad news would spook investors and discourage future colonists, the company censored accounts of hardship in letters coming from Virginia. Despite demands from London to cultivate more corn and less tobacco, tobacco always sold at much higher prices, and so remained the crop of choice, even when the colonists were forced to buy corn from the natives. Although reliable information about Pocahontas is incomplete, Price's depiction of the bright, compassionate princess is warm and admiring. Smith's return to England to recover from an injury resulted in disaster for Jamestown. The inexperienced former courtiers made incredible errors that led to the Starving Time and massacres. The author describes these horrific events in graphic detail. The book concludes with an account of Smith's writings and an analysis of the man's vision of America.--Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Most Americans, one hopes, have at least a vague awareness of the roles of John Smith and Pocahontas in the success of the Jamestown colony. For those general readers who wish to move beyond the myths and obtain a better understanding of them and the early years of the colony, this book will be an enjoyable and valuable tool. Price is a journalist who brings considerable flair to the telling of a familiar story, and he offers some interesting perspectives on both Smith and Pocahontas. Of course, he dispels the myth of their romantic involvement, viewing Smith as a dynamic, driven "common" man who was determined to crack the whip over the aristocratic, lazy colonists, who expected to find gold and then return to England. Pocahontas emerges here as an intelligent, curious young women who played a vital role in bridging the gap between two cultures. Price also describes in vivid detail the precarious and brutal existence of life in Jamestown when the physical survival of the colonists was by no means certain. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"A fine book...one that personifies the virtues I esteem...clarity, intelligence, grace,
novelty, and brevity."
--David L. Beck, San Jose Mecury News

Solid and engaging... Price focuses on the human story of Jamestown, nearly mythic
in its resonances."
--Caleb Crain, New York Times Book Review

"Splendidly realized...firmly grounded in original sources...and in later scholarship, it has
the immediacy of contemporary journalism...by teasing out the themes of love and hate,
Price has given the Jamestown story a contemporary freshness."
--Michael Kenney, Boston Globe

"Combining a gift for storytelling with meticulous scholarship...Price sorts reality from
legend in his splendid new book....it is superbly done."
-- Roger Bishop, BookPage

"Sparkling....Price relates the entire riveting story of the founding of Virginia....built
unobtrusively on the best scholarship....a splendid work of serious narrative history."
-- Publishers Weekly

"A graceful narrative history of the troubled Jamestown colony....A first-rate work of
popular history, and sure to become a standard."
--Kirkus

?Price has digested the most recent scholarship on early Virginia, then filtered it through his instincts as a storyteller to create the most historically correct and stylistically elegant rendering of John Smith and Pocahontas that I have ever read."
?Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

"In a rousing tale of the early years of Jamestown, David A. Price rescues Pocahontas and the Virginia settlement from Hollywood cartoons as deftly as the young Indian princess may have saved Captain John Smith from execution by her father, the great Powhatan."
?Jon Kukla, author of A Wilderness So Immense

"A juicy feast of compelling storytelling....a meticulosuly researched volume ...that scans
in the imagination like a motion picture. Love and Hate in Jamestown deserves an honored spot
in any history buffs library."
--Jerrold J. Ladd, Sr., Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"A fine book...one that personifies the virtues I esteem...clarity, intelligence, grace,
novelty, and brevity."
--David L. Beck, San Jose Mecury News
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

A gripping narrative of one of the great survival stories of American history: the opening of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Drawing on period letters and chronicles, and on the papers of the Virginia Company–which financed the settlement of Jamestown–David Price tells a tale of cowardice and courage, stupidity and brilliance, tragedy and costly triumph. He takes us into the day-to-day existence of the English men and women whose charge was to find gold and a route to the Orient, and who found, instead, hardship and wretched misery. Death, in fact, became the settlers’ most faithful companion, and their infighting was ceaseless.

Price offers a rare balanced view of the relationship between the settlers and the natives. He unravels the crucial role of Pocahontas, a young woman whose reality has been obscured by centuries of legend and misinformation (and, more recently, animation). He paints indelible portraits of Chief Powhatan, the aged monarch who came close to ending the colony’s existence, and Captain John Smith, the former mercenary and slave, whose disdain for class distinctions infuriated many around him–even as his resourcefulness made him essential to the colony’s success.

Love and Hate in Jamestown is a superb work of popular history, reminding us of the horrors and heroism that marked the dawning of our nation. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"A fine book...one that personifies the virtues I esteem...clarity, intelligence, grace,
novelty, and brevity."
--David L. Beck, San Jose Mecury News

Solid and engaging... Price focuses on the human story of Jamestown, nearly mythic
in its resonances."
--Caleb Crain, New York Times Book Review

"Splendidly realized...firmly grounded in original sources...and in later scholarship, it has
the immediacy of contemporary journalism...by teasing out the themes of love and hate,
Price has given the Jamestown story a contemporary freshness."
--Michael Kenney, Boston Globe

"Combining a gift for storytelling with meticulous scholarship...Price sorts reality from
legend in his splendid new book....it is superbly done."
-- Roger Bishop, BookPage

"Sparkling....Price relates the entire riveting story of the founding of Virginia....built
unobtrusively on the best scholarship....a splendid work of serious narrative history."
-- Publishers Weekly

"A graceful narrative history of the troubled Jamestown colony....A first-rate work of
popular history, and sure to become a standard."
--Kirkus

“Price has digested the most recent scholarship on early Virginia, then filtered it through his instincts as a storyteller to create the most historically correct and stylistically elegant rendering of John Smith and Pocahontas that I have ever read."
–Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

"In a rousing tale of the early years of Jamestown, David A. Price rescues Pocahontas and the Virginia settlement from Hollywood cartoons as deftly as the young Indian princess may have saved Captain John Smith from execution by her father, the great Powhatan."
–Jon Kukla, author of A Wilderness So Immense

"A juicy feast of compelling storytelling....a meticulosuly researched volume ...that scans
in the imagination like a motion picture. Love and Hate in Jamestown deserves an honored spot
in any history buffs library."
--Jerrold J. Ladd, Sr., Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"A fine book...one that personifies the virtues I esteem...clarity, intelligence, grace,
novelty, and brevity."
--David L. Beck, San Jose Mecury News
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

David Price was formerly a reporter in the Washington, D.C. bureau of Investor’s Business Daily. His articles have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Forbes, and Business 2.0. He holds degrees from Harvard Law School, Cambridge University, and the College of William and Mary. He was raised in Richmond, Virginia and now lives with his wife and their two sons in Washington, D.C. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.