Searching for Virginia Dare


Book Description

In 1587 America's first English child was born in a remote island wilderness. They named her Virginia Dare. Soon after her birth, Virginia and more than a hundred men, women, and children disappeared. Weaving research and interview, memory and imagination, Hudson's tale is a spellbinding journey into the mysteries of the Lost Colony.




The Search for Liberty


Book Description

This is a history of the region now known as the United States of America, from earliest times to the American victory over the British and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The book charts the arrival of the first Americans through Alaska, millennia before the coming of the Norsemen, or of Cabot, Columbus and Raleigh. It tells of the sixteenth century incursions by the Spanish, French and English, their interaction with the American Indians, and describes the early settlements, their culture, activities and trade. The author traces the rise to dominance of the British settlers, and the establishment of the whole of east America within the British Empire. The book closes with an account of the war with the British and of Washington's final triumph.




Becoming the Lost Colony


Book Description

Headlines declare after each new hint of evidence that the Lost Colony--the English colonists left on Roanoke Island in 1587, including Virginia Dare--has been found. None of these claims pass muster as the historical, archaeological, and literary evidence presented here demonstrate. This book analayzes several hypotheses and demonstrates why none have been shown to be more probable than any of the others. To understand how the 1587 colonists became The Lost Colony, the authors recount the history of the English expeditions in the 1580s and the original searches for the colonists from 1590 until the 1620s. The archaeological evidence gathered from the 19th through the 21st centuries is presented. The book then examines how the disappearance of the colonists has been portrayed in pseudoscience, fiction, and popular culture from the beginnings until the present day. In the end, readers will have all the data they need to judge new claims concerning the fate of The Lost Colony.




The Secret Token


Book Description

*National Bestseller* A sweeping account of America's oldest unsolved mystery, the people racing to unearth its answer, and the sobering truths--about race, gender, and immigration--exposed by the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina. Chartered by Queen Elizabeth I, their colony was to establish England's first foothold in the New World. But when the colony's leader, John White, returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers were nowhere to be found. They left behind only a single clue--a "secret token" carved into a tree. Neither White nor any other European laid eyes on the colonists again. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? For four hundred years, that question has consumed historians and amateur sleuths, leading only to dead ends and hoaxes. But after a chance encounter with a British archaeologist, journalist Andrew Lawler discovered that solid answers to the mystery were within reach. He set out to unravel the enigma of the lost settlers, accompanying competing researchers, each hoping to be the first to solve its riddle. Thrilling and absorbing, The Secret Token offers a new understanding not just of the first English settlement in the New World but of how the mystery and significance of its disappearance continues to define and divide our country.




DATELINE: WORLD—20 Dispatches from the Earth & One from Hell


Book Description

“A favorite shelf in my bookcase leads with By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, a compendium of journalism the great novelist wrote to support himself as he worked on his fiction. Right next to it is Ernie’s War, dispatches by Ernie Pyle, the most famous of World War II correspondents. Milton Nieuwsma’s fine volume joins this shelf of honor.” —From the foreword by Tom Stites, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editor/journalist “Compassion and humility radiate from Milt’s pen. I followed him to Auschwitz twenty-five years after he wrote his evocative account of the 50th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. His exhortation to listen to the stories of the survivors is a sample of his great writing: ‘To turn away is to kill them a second time. But to listen is to confront the monster that lurks in the human soul.’ A must read.” —Malcolm Brabant, correspondent, PBS NewsHour; author, The Daughter of Auschwitz Before he turned to writing for public television, Milton Nieuwsma traveled the world covering stories for the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers. This book is a compendium of 21 of his best pieces—20 from the earth and one from hell. He takes you to the Arctic and the Antarctic; to the Amazon and the Nile; to Auschwitz, the scene of humanity’s greatest crime, and to a rural Mississippi courtroom where the acquittal of Emmett Till’s killers sparked the civil rights movement. “Milt Nieuwsma is a master of his craft,” writes Tom Stites. “Its value still leaps out of the page at the reader.”




Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals


Book Description

In the misty dawn of January 31, 1921, a Coast Guardsman on watch at the Cape Hatteras Life-Saving Station sighted a mighty five-masted schooner, all sails set, wrecked on the treacherous Diamond Shoals. Rescuers rushed to the ship, but when they arrived




Mysteries in History


Book Description

This work is an engaging exploration of the process of historical research, following historians as they search for solutions to the greatest mysteries of all time. Award-winning author Paul Aron takes readers on a journey through great historical mysteries through the ages. Entertaining in themselves, the stories also show that history is not merely living, but lively. The reader who comes to the book thinking history is boring will leave with a changed outlook with regard to both the subject matter and the process of writing history. Each chapter is a carefully and thoroughly researched presentation not of popularized accounts but of valid historical scholarship. Chronologically arranged, the essays show the historical process in action. For each disputed historical point, theories arise, become standard wisdom, and then are revised as additional information becomes available. This book reveals the mechanics of that process, including spirited debate, swashbuckling archaeology, and the application of modern science to ancient questions.




Dangerous Dreams


Book Description

Publishers Weekly: “ … a story full of convincing period details, fraught with tension and violence, and featuring a strong cast.” In 1587, 117 English colonists landed on Roanoke Island in the New World. A month later, disintegrating conditions forced the governor back to England for additional supplies and colonists. In 1590, he returned to find the colony vanished—America’s greatest unsolved mystery, the Lost Colony of Roanoke. In year 2000, young Allie O’Shay experiences a series of unsettling, lifelike dreams. She deduces she’s witnessing the desperate saga of the Lost Colony through the heart, mind, and tribulations of a young colonist named Emily Colman. The colony battles dwindling supplies, dissension, conspiracy, sickness, and hostile natives; while suitors seek Emily’s favor, and a warrior from a distant tribe stirs her heart. Disastrous circumstances converge, Emily faces terrifying perils that compel an agonizing, life-or-death decision, and Allie O’Shay discovers a dangerous dark side to her dreams and far more to her bond with the Lost Colony than she could ever have imagined. Kirkus Reviews: “ … This dynamic, genre-bending tale … delivers new discoveries and venerable truths.”







The Men of the Mountains


Book Description