E-raamat: Founding of English America: An Introduction to the Lost Colony and Jamestown

With the scope of a Homeric epic, Mays narrative follows Europes seagoing nations as their mariners discover various dependable winds, as navigation and shipbuilding evolve, and as England tries to best its rivals by colonizing the eastern North American coast between 1580 and 1610. His focus narrows on the first two attempts: Roanoke Island, the one that disappeared, and Jamestown, the one that nearly starved to death before becoming the epicenter of Virginias booming tobacco economyand its market in enslaved Africans. In this extensively researched work, Mays eye is also often on Powhatan, father of Pocahontas and great chief, as he dealt with Captain John Smith and his English cohort. Fascinating: full of great characters, surprises, and horrors, and gripping all the way!Bland Simpson, author of North Carolina, Land of Water, Land of Sky and Clover Garden In this elegantly written, thoughtful and well-researched narrative, John May leads us through the formative years of English America, explaining the impulses that sent explorers, colonisers and settlers west across the Atlantic to the earliest colonies on the eastern seaboard, at Roanoke and Jamestown. May rightly ties the two precarious colonies together, in one gripping tale. Pen portraits of his larger-than-life protagonists, Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain John Smith, Powhatan, and Pocahontas, are deft and perceptive, and his interpretation of disputed topics, the fate of the lost colony, for example, is measured and persuasive.Mark Nicholls, author of Sir Walter Raleigh in Life & Legend (with Penry Williams) and A History of the Modern British Isles: 1529-1603: The Two Kingdoms The Founding of English America: An Introduction to the Lost Colony and Jamestown is a thoroughly-researched and engagingly-written new history of the early days of Englands colonization of America. Its rare to find both of these qualities in one book. But John May has done it. Scholars and history buffs will find plenty here to please them, for the books not timid. It takes a refreshing look at some very old evidence, and when he thinks its warranted, May quarrels with the historians. (He quarrels with me about John Smith and Pocahontas.) But always he handles the evidence with appropriate tact and historical insight. The non-expert will find an entertaining and trustworthy history of Roanoke and Jamestown. Calling itself an introduction might be too modest. If youre going to read one book on the subject, this would be a good choice. The narrative is alive to the stranger-than-fiction stories of the larger-than-life characters of these early days of the British Empire. In short, its a great read.Joseph Kelly, author of Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of Americas Origin A vivid account of early English colonialism in North America. Writing with rare grace, intelligence, and brevity, John May shows that the settlements at Roanoke and Jamestown were densely intertwined, rooted in the same imperial ambitions. What grew out of them is an essential American storyat once momentous and tragic.John Wood Sweet, author of The Sewing Girls Tale, winner of the Bancroft Prize and editor of Envisioning An English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World In The Founding of English America John May delivers that elusive, critical balance in non-fiction prose: successfully blending exhaustive research with an engaging literary style. The result is a very welcome and informative portrayal of that slice of history from the search for a northwest passage, to Raleighs attempts at establishing a foothold at Roanoke, and finally to the founding of the first permanent English colony in America at Jamestown. Highly recommended.Brandon Fullam author of The Lost Colony of Roanoke: New Perspectives, Manteo and the Algonquins of the Roanoke Voyages, and A Lost Colony Hoax: The Chowan River Dare Stone Mays copious research combined with his great storytelling gifts make his account of the Lost Colony and Jamestown histories a reading pleasure.D. G. Martin, host of North Carolina Bookwatch In The Founding of English America, John May gives us just what we need right now. His clear-headed account of the countrys founding serves up the big picture and the forgotten storiesthe wars with Spain, the tragedy of contact with the indigenous people, and the profit-hungry pirates and privateers drawn to the New World. This detailed and incisive book is not afraid to reveal the sausage-making behind our nations creation.Andrew Lawler, author of The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke