Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America

A thoroughly enjoyable and informative book that gives a great insight into life at that time. Transportive and as engaging as anything fictional tale you might wish for - and adds a good sense of other historical and political issues of the day.

"Savage Kingdom" is an eye-opener for those Americans who have it firmly planted in their minds that the first colonists were the Pilgrims and landed on Plymouth Rock. Jamestown was not the failure cited in the first few pages of another recent book about the Pilgrims, "Mayflower," but a settlement that had a rocky start partly due to landing on territory claimed by a hostile and powerful Indian confederation. The Virginia story might have been different if they had met friendly Indians as the Pilgrims did, but the Virginians persevered and survived, 13 years before the Pilgrims set foot on Massachusetts. The author recounts John Smith's explorations up and down the Chesapeake Bay and north along the sea coast to Massachusetts. Smith discovered and named Cape Cod; that's why the lost Pilgrims knew where they were.I found the description of activities back in England fascinating. Have read a lot of 16th and 17th English history, I recognized many of the players and was most interested in their part in the settlement of the New World. The English side of the story is not often included in American history books, but it's just as important as what transpired on the James River. The manner in which the colony was set up and managed led to many of the beliefs we Americans hold dear - self-government, representative government, separation of church and state.This is an excellent book, and probably the best on the Jamestown experience.

Wow. Simply a fantastic introduction to the birth of the nation. Woolley does a great job of tying in the commercial, spiritual, and royal interests competing against nature and natives to forge a society. There are a few lulls but it is so worth the read - and the lulls are brief.

I enjoyed this book very much. If you've never read any book on the Jamestown saga before, this book is a good beginning. It's a comprehensive overview of the whole Jamestown period from its birth in 1607 until the Indian massacre in 1623, which ultimately strengthened and unified the Virginia colony. I happened to read  The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America  at the same time and noticed some historical discrepancies between the two works, yet they both give a full and vivid picture of the Jamestown colony. One should be forewarned, however, that the author of Savage Kingdom does bring in a lot of tangential history to give more background to the story. While I enjoyed this very much, some may find this a bit tedious. The book covers much of the same ground as other books and tends to moralise the actions between the English and the Indians, but altogether it's a good beginning to a study on this era of American history. Interestingly, this is the third book I've read on the subject, but only the first to imply that there may have been some romantic feelings between Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. It's not given much attention in this book, but an interesting subject to delve into. The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America

I enjoyed this book, providing a good insight into the events and individuals surrounding the colonisation of Jamestown. I did feel at times that some of the writing was a bit linear in pages after pages of "this happened, then that happened" rather than stitching together a more coherent narrative.