If you enjoyed our reading for this week, an excerpt from Tony Horwitz’s book A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, you may be interested in the companion website. The site has engaging photos that he collected in his travels, his biography, an interactive map, and even a quiz to test your knowledge of early American history. Also, here is the link to a short interview with Horwitz where he discusses his reasons for writing this book.
Although we only have the opportunity to discuss his chapter on the Vikings, there are a lot of other fascinating stories about early European explorations in Central and North America. For instance, did you know that Columbus never realized that he had discovered a new continent? At his death in 1506, he still believed that he had found an alternate water route connecting Europe to Asia.
If you are interesting in some fun reading, by all means, read the rest of this book. You may also want to check out one of his other books, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, which talks about the Civil War and the modern-day history buffs who participate in military reenactments.
