To put it another way, while I'm more than
sympathetic to Jonathan's desire to read Karen Ordahl Kupperman's book about early America
before weighing in on The New World (I speak as one who read four different books about feudal Japan
before writing my review of The Last Samurai a few years back), I think it's also essential to keep in mind the fact that most
audiences who see the film will come to it with very little, if any, historical background, and that to a certain extent the film even asks to be read ahistorically.