The Name of War

The Name of War

In this historical and culturally divided book, Jill Lepore examines and tries to define the King Philips War and how people wrote about it. At the beginning of the colonies it was a start of a “New England" and after the King Philip’s War with all of the religious conflicts and war stories, a new American identity was born. Throughout this book she tells gruesome tales about murders, massacres, and battles. Even thought his book jumps a lot in chronically order she successfully tells the tales for both sides pretty accurately. I enjoyed reading some parts of this book. Especially the beginning and the middle because I thought the End dropped off and slowed down.

Starting even before the war begins, she tells the tale of John Sassamon which she uses as the basis of ideas. This is a center point of the first part of her book. Why Sassamon was either killed for no reason or assassinated? New England Indians at the time were to become accustom to English goods and some were even converting to Christianity. Soon after the war begins she shows how the Indians use Christianity as a part of their war. Also after the war begins she writes about how many writers try to capture the war in words so that the colonies don't loose their "Englishness". This is ironic because by trying not to loose their "Englishness" they form an American identity.

Inside the John Sassamon story lays the true reason why he was killed. Sassamon was an educated man, which was very rare considering he was a Native American. Even though he was growing apart from some of his friends in the colonies he still had strong ties with them. There are many reasons why he would be killed but none as strong as turning on your own people. Treason is considered a great offence to our country, imagine the offence taken by the Native Americans. Reading this book I found great similarities with the Native American culture and one with a gang or a mob family. All of them seem to have great penalties for one of their own turning against them. The major difference would be that the Native Americans religion was also a great deal of their culture. A mob family’s religion (catholic or instance) would conflict with the killing of another human. But the Native Americans were not that way, if one was killed and they took hostages then the one killed could be revenged by killing a hostage....

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...re not doing any of the torturing and only watching they don’t loose their ties with the mother land. This was completely wrong, the Colonists were there not the English. The English might have read about it somewhere in a newspaper or a book but the Colonists had to live through it. This is the reason why the Colonists lost their Englishness and began a new American identity.

Lepore also used writers of that time to distinguish between how they told their truth and what she thought was the truth. This was a very useful part of the book, it showed to us the reader, that not all the stories that we read about the in history books or books from that time are entirely correct. That in every writing there is some type of biases ness. She did a very good job on representing both sides very well.

This book was the study of war and how people wrote about it. But also the book makes it apparently clear that this was the start of a new American identity. Throughout the writings, stories, and all of the religious battles that were fought one true thing remained the colonist’s Englishness was gone. This was not New England any more this was something new. This was a “New” New England.