The Story We Remember Is Not The Whole Story

Thanksgiving did not emerge fully formed from a peaceful meal in 1621. Its history stretches across centuries of conflict, diplomacy, religion, politics, national crisis, commerce, and cultural memory.

Long before Thanksgiving became a permanent American holiday, the people whose lives would eventually be folded into its origin story were confronting disease, displacement, food scarcity, political uncertainty, and the violent competition for power along the northeastern coast of North America.

This book follows that longer trail. It moves from the kidnapping of Tisquantum and the desperate first months of Plymouth Colony through colonial warfare, revolutionary politics, presidential proclamations, Civil War, and finally the twentieth-century battle over when Americans would celebrate Thanksgiving.

The result is not an argument that one simple story should replace another. It is an investigation into how a complicated historical record became one of America's most powerful national traditions.