THE SCENT OF HISTORY A True-ish Quest of Forgotten American History by Derek Parsons Bold. Hilarious. Uncomfortable. True-ish. The Scent of History isn't just a story - it's a mirror. Set in 1619 aboard a Dutch ship full of lost men, Derek Parsons turns the birth of American identity into a wild, unforgettable ride through the absurd and the profound. When a desperate man named JoJo tries to sell hope - and hygiene - to six hundred doomed passengers using nothing but a filthy rag and faith, he accidentally invents more than a miracle: he invents a metaphor for America itself. Told with biting humor and brutal honesty, this story bridges past and present - from the ship's chaos to a modern museum where a smooth-talking historian rewrites the truth for public display. It's dark, it's funny, and it's painfully human - a story about how we survive, how we remember, and how even our cleanest moments are born from the dirt. The Scent of History dares to say what others won't: that the past doesn't just haunt us - it sells itself back to us, polished, perfumed, and forgotten.