A Voyage Long and Strange - Tony Horwitz - A Short Summary and Review

 A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World - Tony Horwitz - A Short Summary and Review

By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review

The history of America, before the Pilgrims.

A Short Summary:

American history is often presented as a sudden leap from Christopher Columbus's arrival in 1492 to the Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth in 1620. In A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horwitz explores the complicated and frequently overlooked century between those familiar events.

Combining narrative history with travel writing, Horwitz examines the explorers, settlements, conflicts, and failed colonial ventures that shaped North America long before Plymouth Colony was established. His journey reveals that European settlement was neither orderly nor inevitable, and that the English foothold in North America came only after generations of costly mistakes, abandoned colonies, and hard-earned lessons.

My Favorite Quote from the Book:

"Myth is more important than history. History is arbitrary, a collection of facts. Myths we choose, we create, we perpetuate."

- Tony Horwitz, A Voyage Long and Strange

Questions to ponder while reading:

Why does common core history begin with the Pilgrims?

How different is this history from the one you were taught?

My Review:

A Voyage Long and Strange is a well-researched and highly readable look at the portion of American history that so often disappears between Christopher Columbus and the arrival of the Pilgrims. Most schoolroom versions of the story move quickly from 1492 to 1620, leaving the impression that very little happened in between. Tony Horwitz fills that gap by tracing the explorers, failed colonies, military expeditions, and competing European ambitions that shaped North America long before Plymouth became part of the national story.

What makes the book especially engaging is Horwitz's combination of history and travel writing. Rather than simply recounting events, he visits the places connected to them and examines how the past is remembered, misunderstood, or sometimes barely acknowledged. His journeys give the book a sense of immediacy and help transform a potentially dense historical subject into something lively, accessible, and often surprisingly funny.

The book also makes clear that European settlement in North America was never a simple or inevitable process. Earlier expeditions were marked by poor planning, violence, disease, starvation, rivalry, and repeated failure. Seeing how many settlements collapsed and how many explorers underestimated the land and the people already living there makes it easier to understand why the English were eventually able to maintain even a small foothold at all. Their success came only after generations of costly mistakes had revealed what did not work.

A Voyage Long and Strange is an excellent choice for readers interested in early American history, exploration, and the stories traditional history classes tend to overlook. It offers useful context for the colonial period while also challenging the neat, simplified version of America's beginnings. Horwitz reminds us that the country's history did not begin with the Pilgrims and that the century before Plymouth was every bit as complicated, chaotic, and consequential.

If you liked A Voyage Long and Strange, you may also like:

Legends and Lies: The Real West - Bill O'Reilly/David Fisher

Lost to Time - Martin W Sandler

Operation Paperclip - Annie Jacobsen

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About the Author

a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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