That King Philip, whose head was paraded around the streets of Plymouth in a barbarous show of triumph, was the son of the Wampanoag chief who celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims in 1621 adds to the irony and tragedy of the events, whose memory this well-researched book deservedly keeps alive. The terror and bitterness of the period live again in the book's illustrations of old woodcuts and lithographs and in quotations from contemporary narratives.

The authors make abundant use of maps and photographs of old sites to enable the reader to follow the course of the war: the book forms an exhaustive guide for the armchair historian or anyone wishing to visit the monuments and battlefields today. King Philip's War tells the story with such close attention to detail that each ambush, each burned-out farm, becomes a vivid image. It also became the brutal model on which the United States came to deal with its native peoples.

The savagery resulted in the clearing of the native populations from southern New England and the unopposed expansion of the New England colonies. Thousands of natives were slaughtered and the rest dispersed or sold into slavery in the West Indies. Hundreds of English died as farmers fled and cowered behind stockades or in the few port towns. Pitched battles were fought from Rhode Island to Maine.

Tensions had been rising as the number of settlers grew, and the pillaging of an outlying farm by affronted young braves escalated into open hostilities. Now largely forgotten, the massacres of 1675 to 1676, known as King Philip's War, ended the harmonious relations that had existed between native Americans and the colonists since their arrival at Plymouth Rock in 1620. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Students of history, colonial war buffs, those interested in Native American history, and anyone who is curious about how this war affected a particular New England town, will find important insights into one of the most seminal events to shape the American mind and continent. Through a careful reconstruction of events, first-person accounts, period illustrations, and maps, and by providing information on the exact locations of more than fifty battles, King Philip's War is useful as well as informative. The harrowing story of one of America's first and costliest wars―featuring a new foreword by bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick At once an in-depth history of this pivotal war and a guide to the historical sites where the ambushes, raids, and battles took place, King Philip's War expands our understanding of American history and provides insight into the nature of colonial and ethnic wars in general.

King Philip's War by Eric B. Schultz