Minotaur Book Club: "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick

For September we will be reading "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick
Author of "In the Hurricane's Eye" AND "In the Heart of the Sea"

Available through the author's website:
https://www.nathanielphilbrick.com/mayflower
Or check your local library or wherever you buy books.

Date and Time:
Thursday, September 24th, 6:30pm – 8:30pm EST

From the Publisher:
“From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a fifty-five-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and profound.

"The Mayflower’s religious refugees arrived in Plymouth Harbor during a period of crisis for Native Americans as disease spread by European fishermen devastated their populations. Initially the two groups—the Wampanoags, led by the charismatic and calculating chief Massasoit, and the Pilgrims, whose pugnacious military officer Miles Standish was barely five feet tall—maintained a fragile working relationship. But within decades, New England would erupt into King Philip’s War, a savagely bloody conflict that nearly wiped out English colonists and natives alike and forever altering the face of the fledgling colonies and the country that would grow from them.

"With towering figures like William Bradford, Massosit, Squanto and the distinctly American hero Benjamin Church at the center of his narrative, Philbrick has fashioned a fresh and compelling portrait of the dawn of American history—a history dominated right from the start by issues of race, violence, and religion."

Previous Book Club:
August was "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau. You can watch our previous book clubs on our YouTube Channel.

The Minotaur Book Club delves into timeless questions and contemporary challenges, inviting participants to explore the roots of governance, liberty, and democracy through the lens of history and philosophy. The discussions will provide a fertile ground for examining how the principles of justice, equality, and collective responsibility have evolved and where they still fall short.

Purpose: The purpose of the book club is to counteract our country’s Historical Amnesia and strengthen our democracy. To that end, we will read and discuss books that help us to understand the American Project, diagnose persisting problems, and suggest ways to fulfill the mission of the Preamble to the Constitution.

"We the People of the United States, to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Minotaur is one of the key archetypes representing the threat to social order when government leaders threaten democracy by converting public goods to private purposes. The best defense for a democracy is educated citizens.

“A society ignorant and free, never was, never will be.” – Thomas Jefferson
“We have given you a republic, if you can keep it.” – Benjamin Franklin