Philbrick starts with the Mayflower and the doomed Speedwell (the second ship that the Pilgrims intended to sail to the New World), and, in eminently readable prose, gives us details on the first winter the Pilgrims spent in the newly created Plimouth Plantation. If the book had covered just the voyage and the first year, it certainly would have lived up to expectations and the title of work; instead, Philbrick goes much further and gives us the stories of the Puritans, who colonized in Masachussets Bay, and the Native Americans, who really owned the land that these English settlers encroached upon.

Philbrick continues his tale through the end of King Philip's War (1674-1675), where the descendants of the original voyagers on board the Mayflower claimed New England as theirs and started the process of relegating the Native Americans to specific areas (the process that we would later call "resettling the Indians onto reservations").

At the tail end of the story of King Philip's War, Philbrick brings the original Mayflower passengers and their descendants back into the fold. Unfortunately, he strays a little too much from the original settlement when providing us with the story of the war, which is why I give the book just four stars instead of five. I truly expected the book to focus exclusively on the voyage and the people that were passengers on that maiden voyage, along with new arrivals into the Plymouth Colony rather than the direction that Philbrick chose to take.

Regardless of the fact that he seemed to stray from the original topic somewhat, I really enjoyed the book and would heartily recommend it to anyone that is interested in early North American History.