A review by emmkayt
Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History by Nick Bunker

4.0

I found the first third admirable in its painstakingness, but a bit soporific. And throughout, it was hard for me to keep all those Pilgrims, Separatists and Puritans straight (John, Robert, Thomas, John, Robert, Thomas, etc etc), which made it periodically a bit of a slog. Somewhere around King James' entrails, however, I began to be more drawn in to this excellent exploration of the milieu in which men (and really, Bunker only seems to be interested in men!) came to settle New England. His enthusiasm is charming - I like his little descriptions of relevant places, trying to help the reader see the old geography beyond the modern paving ("turn left at the Dunking Donuts," a historically important field that's now a parking lot for school buses), and I like his commitment to meticulously tracing the threads of history.