Tony Horwitz never disappoints. Whether he's retracing the last voyage of Captain Cook before the natives finally dispatched captain and crew; traveling the path of the U.S. Civil War encountering park rangers puzzled about patrons wondering why so many federal parks had battles on them and tiny little southern ladies determined that the War of Northern Aggression is just in cease fire; wandering the Middle East having tea and Qat with the locals and drifting down the Nile; or, in "A Voyage Long and Strange", embarking on an odyssey that takes him from Plymouth Rock to Zuni outposts in the west and all points in between delving deeply into the exploits of explorers who braved the wilds of the New World. Horwitz is studied, but not boring; detailed but not tedious; very, very funny without being condescending to his subjects. Read it.
Conveys the results of the author's spirited investigation into lesser-known aspects of the period between Columbus's voyage and the founding of Jamestown, in an accessible account that covers such topics as the conquistadors, the explorers, and slavery. Reprint.