A Gorgeous Jamestown Book

I gushed earlier about Jamestown and mentioned that everybody's writing books on the subject. I want to praise one I've only partially read. It's John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages, 1607-1609, by Helen C. Rountree, Wayne E. Clark, and Kent Mountford. Published by the University of Virignia Press (Charlottesville and London: wonder what Mr. Jefferson would think of that?), 2007.

It's a truly interdisciplinary work. Rountree is the ethnohistorian who has done most of the groundbreaking work on the Powhatan and other Chesapeake Indians. Clark is apparently a local history type and Mountford an ecologist. They have tried to recreate and explain Smith's voyages (and the early explorations generally) in terms of the local cultures, geography, flora and fauna, and ecology of the Bay at the time.

I think the book was about $30 or so. The maps alone are worth it. I'm a local history/local Indians buff and find the book enormously informative, but I think geographers, ecologists, Save the Bay people, and local history folks will enjoy it as well.

I haven't read it all yet, but the maps alone are gorgeous and the book has tremendous production values.

UPDATE: A belated realization that you might want to find the Amazon link for this book. No, I'm not getting a commission.