Esther Y. (WildcatFan) reviewed on 12/13/2009 + 49 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

I don't exactly know where to start this review. This book is a worthwhile read, but I was disappointed by it. For me, it was confusing to read. The author seemed to jump back and forth in telling the story of Henry Hudson's exploration in 1609. At times, the story was about preceding events, then subsequent events, then Hudson's voyage and back and forth again. As another reviewer has commented, it also seemed that the author had trouble deciding whether to write a scholarly work or a general interest work.

Included in the book is background on the Dutch company that commissioned the journey by Hudson that eventually led to his exploring the New York estuary. Hudson began his journey as assigned by exploring for a Northeast passage to the Orient. He soon reversed course and headed for North America. Hudson was an Englishman, but most of his crew were Dutch and this contributed to communication difficulties. Hudson had to always watch his back and be aware of unrest among his crew.

The book includes many maps, but some of them were very difficult to read. I am not sure why, but the maps were not as helpful as maps usually are for me. One of the more interesting parts of the book were the excerpts from the journal kept by Robert Juet, one of the Englishmen on the journey.

Limited source material would have made it difficult to compile the information needed to cover the topic. Sometimes, the author conjectured on what must have happened. This included much of the discussion of the interaction with the native peoples.

I would recommend this book only for readers who are interested in a thorough discussion of early exploration of the east coast of North America.

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