num_pages: 709
description: Massachusetts: a state born of bravery, controversy and confrontation, a place where American roots run deep. Both the furnace and the fuel for the fires of Independence, Massachusetts embodies the indomitable spirit of America. It did so in the beginning, and the tradition lives on to this day.Here is the entire fascinating story of Massachusetts, as it was lived in all its authentic detail and towering glory. In this epic novel, Nancy Zaroulis, writing at the pinnacle of her storytelling power, brilliantly portrays three generations of the fictional Revell family, as they are swept up in the tidal wave of history. The story begins on the Mayflower, with orphaned Bartholomew Revell in the care of pilgrim leader John Carver. At New Plymouth, a settlement struggling with hardship and death, the great sachem Massasoit and the wise Squanto present the Pilgrims with the secrets of survival in the New World. Bartle will make his way to Boston, five years after the city is founded, to begin his dynasty. With his son Jedediah he will build the kind of fabulous trading empire that Boston's port makes possible - in spite of war with Indians, threats from the Mother Country, and the zealous hunt for witches and devil worshipers.But it is Bartle's grandson, Ebenezer, who will face the greatest crises of all - Revolution. Joining John Adams and the other founding fathers, he will survive the War of Independence only to see his family divided, one Revell pitted against another.At last the state is set for Massachusetts - and the Revells - to play their parts in the great events of the next two centuries: the China Trade, the Industrial Revolution, and the growing call for the abolition of slavers; the Civil War and the wave of Irish immigrants that settles in Boston, including the upstart Shaughnessys; the union movement and the tragic case of Sacco and Vanzetti; the stock market crash and world war. The saga continues into the present, as the Revells fight the most important battle of all: to save Thoreau's Walden, and at that world-famous symbol of the environment, to begin the struggle to save the Earth itself.Spanning more than 350 years in the lives of the heroic men and women who became the legendary leaders of Massachusetts, and of a new united country, Nancy Zarioulis's magnificent novel is the definitive portrait of a great state and a great people, Massachusetts.
language: English
title: Massachusetts
titlecomplete: Massachusetts
genres: Civil War, Historical Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 92
publisher: Fawcett