Donald W White

"An easy to digest contemporary guide to the Mayflower Pilgrims.... a useful companion to the original text, 'Of Plimoth Plantation.'... The book is excellent." - Jane Williams (Producer and Director of the documentary film, "Pilgrim Home: In Search of Scrooby Manor")"I highly recommend A Plymouth Pilgrim for middle school and high school students. My boys will be reading the book... and I feel blessed to be able to use it as a part of their studies." - Danika Cooley (homeschooling blogger, and author of When Lightning Struck: The Story of Martin Luther). This is the dramatic true story of the Plymouth Pilgrims as told by an eyewitness to their lives: their persecutions, secret meetings, angry negotiations, religious disputes, savage storms, kidnapping and sabotage, fear and faith, and their desperate struggle to survive. This is William Bradford's own story-the Plymouth Pilgrim thrust into the leadership of a struggling colony. His 400-year-old story is now carefully paraphrased for twenty-first century readers. IN THIS BOOK YOU WILL FIND: * A timeline of crucial historical events leading up to the Plymouth settlement. * Chapter questions for study, discussion, and reflection. * Maps and illustrations unique to this book. * Obscure historical references clarified within the text as part of the story. * The list of Mayflower passengers grouped into families. * Archaic language paraphrased into a clear, dramatic first-person account.* Adherence to the content, convictions, and chronology of Bradford's journal. This fresh retelling of the Pilgrim's true story concludes with their first full year in the New World, thereby encompassing all the events that fascinate us most: from their persecutions in England, to their dangerous ocean voyage, their first encounters with Native Americans, their struggle against sickness and starvation, culminating with their now famous celebration that we call the "First Thanksgiving." In this book you will find neither patriotic hero-worship, nor politically correct revisionism. This is the true story of Governor William Bradford, with all his faith, fears, and frailties, but retold in modern language so readers may hear his story the way he might tell it today over a hot cup of tea at your kitchen table.

Why did the United States assume a preeminent world role after World War II, and why has that role declined since the Vietnam War? This magisterial book—the first intellectual and cultural history of America's evolving status as a world power in the twentieth century—addresses these questions by examining Americans' perceptions of themselves and of the world during this period. Drawing on the writings of leading intellectuals, speeches by politicians, popular periodicals, movies and television, opinion polls, and dozens of other sources, Donald W. White explores what Americans thought about power in the twentieth century, how they evaluated America's expanding world role and the confrontations of the Cold War, and how they perceived the erosion of this unprecedented accumulation of power in the years after the Vietnam War. With colorful anecdotal detail, White presents a new perspective on foreign affairs during these years, recounting the global spread of American democratic philosophy, technology, industrial goods, literature, arts, and way of life against a backdrop of military crises and diplomatic negotiations. In the process he identifies major trends in past American foreign policy and suggests possibilities for the prospects of international relations in the future.