"The story of the wild, beautiful, fearless IDINA SACKVILLE, descendant of one of England's oldest families, who went off to KENYA in search of adventure and became known as the high priestess of the scandalous "HAPPY VALLEY SET"--jacket cover.

For 250 years the author's family spread across the globe, helping to expand the British Empire and paint the map red. This is a personal reckoning with that dubious legacy, echoing down to the present in South Africa. It begins with the discovery' of Tahiti in 1767 by an ancestor, from whose log book Rostron reveals that his sailors were exchanging the ship's nails for sex with Tahitian maidens so that HMS Dolphin began, literally, to fall apart. After...

A new look at Thomas Morton, his controversial colonial philosophy, and his lengthy feud with the Puritans. Adding new depth to our understanding of early New England society, this riveting account of Thomas Morton explores the tensions that arose from competing colonial visions. A lawyer and fur trader, Thomas Morton dreamed of a society where Algonquian peoples and English colonists could coexist. Infamous for dancing around a maypole in defiance...

"He fought and beheaded three Turkish commanders in duels. He was sold into slavery, then murdered his master to escape. He was captured by pirates--twice--and marched to the gallows to be hanged, only to be reprieved seconds before the noose dropped over his head. And all this happened before he was 30 years old. This is Captain John Smith's life. Everyone knows the story of Pocahontas and how she saved John Smith. And were it not for Smith's leadership,...

The mighty Mads Mikkelsen unleashes a maelstrom of bloodshed in the Wild West in this white-knuckle tale of revenge. When he lays waste to the scoundrels who killed his wife and son, a Danish ex-soldier incurs the wrath of a sadistic gang leader hell-bent on hunting him down. Exploding with eye-popping action, dazzlingly dramatic frontier landscapes, and a smoldering performance by Eva Green, The Salvation is a rip-roaring, blood-spattered saga of...

In his first work of narrative nonfiction, Matthew Pearl, bestselling author of acclaimed novel The Dante Club, explores the little-known true story of the kidnapping of legendary pioneer Daniel Boone's daughter and the dramatic aftermath that rippled across the nation. On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near...

From their self-imposed exile in Holland to their perilous crossing of the Atlantic, to their first year in the new world, Desperate Crossing is the definitive story of how the Pilgrims came to live and prosper in an unfamiliar land.

"Meet Tony: insatiably curious, deeply compassionate, with a unique perspective on every scene he encounters. Kidnapped and transported to the New World after traveling from the British East India Company's outpost on the Coromandel Coast to the teeming streets of London, young Tony finds himself in Jamestown, Virginia, where he and his fellow indentured servants--boys like himself, men from Africa, a mad woman from London--must work the tobacco plantations....

"1619 offers a new interpretation of the significance of Jamestown in the long trajectory of American history. Jamestown, the cradle of American democracy, also saw the birth of our nation's greatest challenge: the corrosive legacy of slavery and racism that have deepened and entrenched stark inequalities in our society. After running Jamestown under martial law from 1610-1616, the Virginia Company turned toward representative government in an effort...

1619. The British colony of Jamestown, Virginia, is shaken up when the first women in twelve years land in this breathtaking wilderness. While love triangles, bitter rivalries, and fierce competition cause conflict for the residents and the native inhabitants, the Pamunkey, they are bound together by their resolute will to survive and thrive in their new lives.