A Short History of Cape Cod

Third in a series that began with Allison's A Short History of Boston, this concise narrative covers four colorful centuries. Here are the key events in Cape Cod history, with over twenty personal profiles of historic figures, more than 100 black-and-white photographs, a detailed chronology, and an index. There's enough detail here to fascinate the historian and enough stories to fill an enjoyable day at the beach. Discovered by Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602 and visited by the Mayflower on its way to Plymouth, Cape Cod has been the site of confrontations between Pilgrims and natives, between Patriots and Tories. Salt works and windmills, lighthouses and shipwrecks, and characters as varied as radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi and playwright Eugene O'Neill have given Cape Cod a unique landscape and a fascinating human community. Men once set out to hunt whales from Provincetown Harbor, Allison writes. Today boats go to watch the whales and study them. The land remains though it continues to change, as the relentless tide and wind reshape the land and remove all evidence that any of us-Native people or Vikings, Pilgrims or Presidents, explorers, warriors, poets, painters, or entrepreneurs-ever set foot on this sandy beach.

Robert J. Allison is chairman of the history department of Suffolk University in Boston and teaches courses in American Constitutional history and the history of Boston at Harvard Extension School. He lives in South Boston and summers in Provincetown on Cape Cod.