Two reviews about "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War," a new book by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Bruce Ramsey: "It is a book with a lesson, which is about not demonizing your opponents, and trying to find the humanity in them, and learning from them. Mainly the story justifies that. It is well written, and engaging at the beginning and the end. It is also a part of American history almost unknown, particularly in this corner of the country, where one can go through 12 years of public school, which I did, without ever hearing of Massasoit, the Pokasset tribe or King Philip's War."
• Review: A war with bad guys on both sides in early America (The Seattle Times 5/12)

Jim Rossi: "The Puritans who settled New England were almost uniformly zealous, intolerant and ill-prepared when they arrived, Nathaniel Philbrick argues in his new book, "Mayflower." But survival in the New World required almost incomprehensible bravery, adaptability and a profoundly ambivalent moral expediency � qualities that have defined and haunted our American identity ever since.

The Pilgrims, writes Philbrick, "had come to America to serve God as best they knew how, and they were now dependent on two Indians named Satan.""
• Review: The New World order, Pilgrim style (The Los Angeles Times 5/12)