Making haste from Babylon : the Mayflower Pilgrims and their world : a new history

The beaver of Mawooshen -- pt. 1. The heavens and the sea : The year of the blazing star ; Mr. Jones in Plymouth Sound ; Crossing Sinai -- pt. 2. Origins : Troublechurch Browne ; Men and women of the clay ; The making of a pilgrim -- pt. 3. Separation : The entrails of the king ; Disobedience and contempt ; Stallingborough Flats -- pt. 4. The project : The tomb of the apostle ; Why the pilgrims sailed ; The beaver, the cossack, and Prince Charles ; In the artillery garden -- pt. 5. America : Comfort and refreshing ; The mystic and the Thames ; Diabolical affection ; If Rochelle be lost -- pt. 6. The ways of salvation : The prophecy of Micaiah ; The first Bostonians ; The exploding colony -- The last shaman.;The Pilgrims were entrepreneurs as well as evangelicals, political radicals as well as Christian idealists. "Making Haste from Babylon" tells their story in unrivaled depth, from their roots in religious conflict and village strife at home to their final creation of a permanent foothold in America. At the end of 1618, a blazing green star soared across the night sky over the northern hemisphere. From the Philippines to the Arctic, the comet became a sensation and a symbol, a warning of doom or a promise of salvation. Two years later, as the Pilgrims prepared to sail across the Atlantic on board the Mayflower, the atmosphere remained charged with fear and expectation. Men and women readied themselves for war, pestilence, or divine retribution. Against this background, and amid deep economic depression, the Pilgrims conceived their enterprise of exile. Within a decade, despite crisis and catastrophe, they built a thriving settlement at New Plymouth, based on beaver fur, corn, and cattle. In doing so, they laid the foundations for Massachusetts, New England, and a new nation. Using a wealth of new evidence from landscape, archaeology, and hundreds of overlooked or neglected documents, Nick Bunker gives a vivid and strikingly original account of the Mayflower project and the first decade of the Plymouth Colony. From mercantile London and the rural England of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I to the mountains and rivers of Maine, he weaves a rich narrative that combines religion, politics, money, science, and the sea. The Pilgrims were entrepreneurs as well as evangelicals, political radicals as well as Christian idealists. Making Haste from Babylon tells their story in unrivaled depth, from their roots in religious conflict and village strife at home to their final creation of a permanent foothold in America. From the Hardcover edition