Introduction
1. Looking Underneath the House: The Evidence the Pilgrims Left Us
2. Remembering Odbody?s Axiom: The Pilgrims? Historical Contexts
3. Pursuing Authentic Education: Thinking About What the Pilgrims Wanted
4. Finding Heroes, Not Idols: Following the Pilgrims to America
5. Seeing Rhinos, Not Unicorns: The Strangeness of the Pilgrims
6. Discarding False Memories: The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving
7. Understanding Revisionism: How the First Thanksgiving Has Changed over Time
8. Receiving Gifts from the Past: The Search for Larger Meaning
Suggested Reading
Notes

Foreword Book of the Year Award FinalistThe Pilgrims' celebration of the first Thanksgiving is a keystone of America's national and spiritual identity. But is what we've been taught about them or their harvest feast what actually happened? And if not, what difference does it make?Through the captivating story of the birth of this quintessentially American holiday, veteran historian Tracy McKenzie helps us to better understand the tale of America's origins and for Christians, to grasp the significance of this story and those like it. McKenzie avoids both idolizing and demonizing the Pilgrims, and calls us to love and learn from our flawed yet fascinating forebears. The First Thanksgiving is narrative history at its best, and promises to be an indispensable guide to the interplay of historical thinking and Christian reflection on the meaning of the past for the present.

Robert Tracy McKenzie (Ph.D., Vanderbilt University) is professor and chair of the department of history at Wheaton College, where he teaches courses in U.S. history, the Civil War and historiography. McKenzie is the author of two award-winning monographs: One South or Many? Plantation Belt and Upcountry in Civil-War Era Tennessee (Cambridge, 1994) and Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War (Oxford, 2009). He has also written numerous scholarly reviews and articles including "Don't Forget the Church: Reflections on the Forgotten Dimension of Our Dual Calling" in the book Confessing History: Christian Faith and the Historian's Vocation (Notre Dame, 2010).