Europe was in the long slumber of the Dark Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of Arab, Jewish, and Christian scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread across Europe like wildfire, offering the scientific point of view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The Catholic Church convulsed, and riots took place at the universities of Paris and Oxford.

Nestled high in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, Goose Pond is surrounded by a deeply forested tranquillity that belies the many murmuring voices eager to tell its stories - stories stretching back hundreds, thousands, and yes, even millions of years. This delightful volume reveals the stories behind the abandoned paper mills, the old cabins, the founding families, the dams, the floods, the Appalachian Trail, the teaming wildlife, the Mohican arrowheads, a storied fishing club, a shoreside resort, a Presidential fishing trip, and even the geological origins of the pond's crescent shape. Writing in his engaging and witty style, the author dives deeply into the timeless legends of an Indian grave, a stone throne, a mysterious U.S. Navy operation and a sunken car. While providing readers with the spoken memories of the lake's children, some interviewed while well into their 90s, a complete written memoir, over twenty simple recipes from Goose Pond's very own cookbook, hand-drawn maps from British colonial days, restored black and white photographs rescued from dusty attic shoeboxes, and clippings discovered in the digital archives of the last century's local newspapers, this generously illustrated book tells the saga of a quintessential, mountaintop New England millpond caught up in the sweeping arc of American history.