In The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell travels once again through America’s past, this time to seventeenth-century New England. She asks:Was Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop a communitarian, Christlike Christian, or conformity’s tyrannical enforcer? Yes!

Was Rhode Island’s architect Roger Williams America’s founding freak or the father of the First Amendment? Same difference. How come Henry Vane the Younger, who argued against beheading the English king, was himself beheaded for helping behead said king?

Good question. What does it take to get that jezebel Anne Hutchinson to shut up? A hatchet.

What was the Puritans’ pet name for the Pope? The Great Whore of Babylon. What is the lesson of the Pequot War?

As in all Vowell’s bestselling books, this exploration of America’s past is both poignant and entertaining. The Wordy Shipmates is rich with historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America’s celebrated voices.