I need to write a review of Doherty's

Sea Venture: Shipwreck, Survival, and the Salvation of the First English Colony in the New World.

Mind if I submit a rough draft for your criticism? Amazon reviews don't need to rate publication in the New York Times, but I do want to write something that encourages people to get ahold of the book and read it.

[Before I get down to business and use that window to google the title and get you the link, I was just reading this guy. He's pretty good.]

The wreck of the Sea Venture has not been denied its fair share of attention in history and the arts - as Doherty shows, Shakespeare appears to have used William Strachey's description of the hurricane that drove Sea Venture onto the Bermudan reef as the inspiration for The Tempest.

Doherty's focus is the contributions the survivors of the shipwreck made to the survival and growth of the Virginia colony, as well as the founding of Bermuda and New England.

John Rolfe, one of the survivors, looms very large in the book, partly because he founded the American tobacco industry, but mostly because he married Pocahontas. Marrying Pocahontas, the daughter of the Powhatan, gave Jamestown "the Peace of Pocahontas" which allowed the colonists to recover from "The Starving Time" and the war with the indians and put down roots - literally. And, apparently Pocahontas herself was instrumental in Rolfe's mastery of tobacco growing, which finally made the colony profitable.

I don't think a review is the place to do more than hint at the surprises in store for readers of the book, but there are many. Doherty uses sources, John Smith, Strachey (who wrote voluminously of their experiences) and Rolfe, as well as any other writings of the time, that help you get inside the heads of the participants. Smith and Rolfe seemed to have had a deep understanding of Powhatan. Unfortunately, they weren't in position to moderate every dispute between the colonists and the indians.