[The title Chesapeake] is misleading. Michener does not write about the whole Bay but about its quirkiest (in some ways most interesting) part, the Eastern Shore. Nor is the distortion restricted to the title. Michener wants to make broad types of narrow exceptions. His book belongs to that genre of multi-generational Hollywood epic that is advertised as a triumph of the human spirit. We have all seen, many times, the movie this book will become….

The later episodes show how thin Michener finds his Eastern Shore material. He must range all over the world to supplement it…. Over and over Michener achieves his Eastern Shore "epic" by leaving the Eastern Shore. At one point, he includes the decisive sea battle of the French navy with the British before Yorktown by the simple expedient of having an Eastern Shore boat nearby to watch it. What we get is a...