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A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl (Dear America)
by Patricia C. MckissackIn 1859 thirteen-year-old Clotee, a house slave who must conceal the fact that she can read and write, records in her diary her experiences and her struggle to decide whether to escape to freedom.
A Picturesque Tour Of The Island Of Jamaica: From Drawings Made In The Years 1820 And 1821 (1825)
by James HakewillHaving published his Picturesque Tour of Italy in 1820, Hakewill visited Jamaica in 1820-21, making the colony the subject of a wonderful color plate book, originally issued in 7 parts from 1824 through 1825. The lithographs are engraved by Sutherland (6) and Clarke after drawings by Hakewill. The views comprise: The Bog Walk, Cardiff Hall, Port Marial Waterfall of the Windward Road, Trinity Estate, Bryan Castle, Great House, Trelawny, and Williamsfield Estate.-Print ed.
A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam
by Keith WalkerA decade after America pulled out of Vietnam, the seeds of the often heart- wrenching oral history, A Piece of My Heart, were sown when writer and filmmaker Keith Walker met a woman who had been an emergency room nurse in Cu Chi and Da Nang. She and 25 others recount the time they spent "in country" as part of 15,000 American women who volunteered or served as nurses and in the military.NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.
A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class
by Joseph NoceraWinner of the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. One of "Business Week"s "Ten Best Business Books of the Year". When it was published in 1994, "A Piece of the Action" was wildly acclaimed by "Fortune," "The Wall Street Journal," authors Michael Lewis and Brian Burroughs; it won the Helen Bernstein Prize and was a national bestseller. Joseph Nocera describes the historical process by which millions of middle class Americans went from being savers--people who kept their money in the bank, and spent it frugally--to being unrepentant borrowers and investors. "A Piece of the Action" is an important piece of financial and social history, and with a new introduction, Noceras 2013 critique of the uses of the revolution is a powerful warning and admonition to understand what is at stake before we act, to look before we jump.
A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood
by Eithne QuinnHollywood is often thought of—and certainly by Hollywood itself—as a progressive haven. However, in the decade after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the film industry grew deeply conservative when it came to conflicts over racial justice. Amid black self-assertion and white backlash, many of the most heated struggles in film were fought over employment. In A Piece of the Action, Eithne Quinn reveals how Hollywood catalyzed wider racial politics, through representation on screen as well as in battles over jobs and resources behind the scenes.Based on extensive archival research and detailed discussions of films like In the Heat of the Night, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Super Fly, Claudine, and Blue Collar, this volume considers how issues of race and labor played out on the screen during the tumultuous early years of affirmative action. Quinn charts how black actors leveraged their performance capital to force meaningful changes to employment and film content. She examines the emergence of Sidney Poitier and other African Americans as A-list stars; the careers of black filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Ossie Davis; and attempts by the federal government and black advocacy groups to integrate cinema. Quinn also highlights the limits of Hollywood’s liberalism, showing how predominantly white filmmakers, executives, and unions hid the persistence of racism behind feel-good stories and public-relations avowals of tolerance. A rigorous analysis of the deeply rooted patterns of racial exclusion in American cinema, A Piece of the Action sheds light on why conservative and corporate responses to antiracist and labor activism remain pervasive in today’s Hollywood.
A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and White Immigrants Since 1880
by Stanley LiebersonThere is little question that the descendants of the new European immigrant groups from Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe have done very well in the United States, reaching levels of achievement far above blacks. Yet the new Europeans began to migrate to the United States in 1880, a time when blacks were no longer slaves. Why have the new immigrants fared better than the blacks? This volume focuses on the historical origins of the current differences between the groups.Professor Lieberson scoured early U. S. censuses and used a variety of offbeat information sources to develop data that would throw light on this question, as well as provide new information on occupations at the turn of the century, finding remarkable parallels between the black position in the urban South and the urban North. He examines and compares progress in education and in politics between the new Europeans and the blacks. What were the effects of segregation? Why did labor unions discriminate more severely against blacks than against the new immigrant groups? This book will generate a fresh interpretation of the origins of black-new European differences, one which explains why other nonwhite groups, such as the Chinese and Japanese, have done relatively well.
A Piece of the World: A Novel
by Christina Baker Kline"A Piece of the World is a graceful, moving and powerful demonstration of what can happen when a fearless literary imagination combines with an inexhaustible curiosity about the past and the human heart: a feat of time travel, a bravura improvisation on the theme of art history, a wonderful story that seems to have been waiting, all this time, for Christina Baker Kline to come along and tell it.” --Michael Chabon, New York Times bestselling author of MoonglowFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the smash bestseller Orphan Train, a stunning and atmospheric novel of friendship, passion, and art, inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s mysterious and iconic painting Christina’s World. "Later he told me that he’d been afraid to show me the painting. He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheatgrass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden." To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century. As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists. Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy.
A Piedade da Fera
by Barbara Risoli C. M. HerreraEm um vilarejo sem nome na Transilvânia do século XIX, Zejna é uma mulher rica e sozinha após a perda da família inteira. Herdeira única de uma grande mansão, é uma mulher que paga pelo que quer e que se expõe às maledicências dos habitantes do vilarejo. Ferozes crimes banham de sangue o povoado, e logo as pessoas descobrem quem é o responsável por aquilo. Quem descobre primeiro, no entanto, é Zejna, que hospedará em sua mansão aqueles que mudarão sua vida sombria para arrastá-la em um abismo inesperadamente iluminado. Dois vampiros. Um deles, incomum. O único a conceder-lhe a piedade que Deus sempre lhe negou.
A Pig of Cold Poison
by Pat McintoshAlthough he was watching closely when the mummer was poisoned, it took Gil Cunningham several days and three more poisonings to work out how it was done.
A Pigeon and a Boy
by Meir ShalevDuring the 1948 War of Independence- a time when pigeons are still used to deliver battlefield messages- a gifted young pigeon handler is mortally wounded. In the moments before his death, he dispatches one last pigeon. The bird is carrying his extraordinary gift to the girl he has loved since adolescence. Intertwined with this story is the contemporary tale of Yair Mendelsohn, who has his own legacy from the 1948 war. Yair is a tour guide specializing in bird-watching trips who, in middle age, falls in love again with a childhood girlfriend. His growing passion for her, along with a gift from his mother on her deathbed, becomes the key to a life he thought no longer possible. Unforgettable in both its particulars and its sweep, A Pigeon and A Boy is a tale of lovers then and now- of how deeply we love, of what home is, and why we, like pigeons trained to fly in one direction only, must eventually return to it. In a voice that is at once playful, wise, and altogether beguiling, Meir Shalev tells a story as universal as war and as intimate as a winged declaration of love.
A Pilgrim Returns to Cape Cod (Snow Centennial Editions Ser.)
by Edward Rowe SnowA Pilgrim Returns to Cape Cod, which was originally published in 1946, is an engrossing tale that chronicles Edward Rowe Snow’s 235-mile trek through Cape Cod that same year.Owing to its historic, maritime character and ample beaches, Cape Cod, which extends into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts in northeastern USA, is a popular tourist attraction particularly during the summer months.Filled with information on the maritime history of this area, with the author’s usual emphasis on the lighthouses, life-saving and shipwrecks, this book provides a wealth of information on the area. A wonderful read!Richly illustrated throughout with photos.
A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith
by Timothy EganTracing an ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, the bestselling and "virtuosic" (The Wall Street Journal) writer explores the past and future of Christianity"What a wondrous work! This beautifully written and totally clear-eyed account of his pilgrimage will have you wondering whether we should all embark on such a journey, either of the body, the soul or, as in Egan's case, both." --Cokie RobertsMoved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and makes his way overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium.Making his way through a landscape laced with some of the most important shrines to the faith, Egan finds a modern Canterbury Tale in the chapel where Queen Bertha introduced Christianity to pagan Britain; parses the supernatural in a French town built on miracles; and journeys to the oldest abbey in the Western world, founded in 515 and home to continuous prayer over the 1,500 years that have followed. He is accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther.A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.
A Pillar of Iron
by Taylor CaldwellTaking us back to Rome in its greatest period--the time of Caesar and Pompey--Taylor Caldwell has written her most poignant story that unfolds as Roman democracy faces its own inexorable decay. Its hero is Cicero--Marcus Tullius Cicero, the pillar of iron, the brilliant and idealistic lawyer, dramatically but precariously devoted to the defense of a nation and republic on trial.
A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome
by Taylor CaldwellNew York Times Bestseller: A magnificent novel of ancient Rome and the tragic life of Cicero, who tried in vain to save the republic he loved from tyranny. In this riveting tale, the Roman Empire in its final glory is seen through the eyes of philosopher, orator, and political theorist Marcus Tullius Cicero. From his birth in 106 BC in the hill town of Arpinum, Cicero, the educated son of a wealthy member of the equestrian order, is destined for greatness. At a young age, he discovers the legend of the Unknown God, the coming Messiah, and it propels the rising lawyer on a journey of spiritual conflict and self-discovery. From his tumultuous family life to his tenuous alliance with Julius Caesar to a fateful love affair with the Roman empress Livia and, finally, to the political role that will make him a target of powerful enemies, A Pillar of Iron is the story of Cicero&’s legacy as one the greatest influences on Western civilization. Based on hundreds of speeches, voluminous private correspondence, and ancient texts and manuscripts, this bestselling epic brings into focus Cicero&’s complicated relationships with his contemporaries, including Caesar, Mark Antony, and Crassus, and brilliantly captures the pageantry, turmoil, and intrigue of life in ancient Rome. According to legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, author &“Taylor Caldwell is a storyteller first, last and foremost, and once you begin reading one of her books, you can&’t help finishing it.&” This ebook features an illustrated biography of Taylor Caldwell including rare images from the author&’s estate.
A Pima Remembers
by George WebbThe lifestyle of a people, preserved in the memory of a Pima whose life ran from the late 1800s to the Space Age. The universality of man’s eternal hope of betterment is reflected in the wisdom of the Pimas:So now I hopeYou will striveTo make this dayThe best in your life.George Webb. “…a book which seems to have grown right out of the Arizona earth—anecdotal, almost artless in its directness, but having the impact of reality…a flavorsome re-creation of things past in the life of a friendly, generous people.”— The New York Times“George Webb’s gentle recollections of his childhood and Pima Indian lifeways will doubtless endure forever. This deeply moving autobiography is the perfect introduction for younger Pimas to their culture and history.” —Arizona Highways“This extraordinarily pleasant and amiable narrative wakes vivid an ancient and happy way of life”—Oliver LaFarge
A Pinch of Poison (A Lady and Lady's Maid Mystery #2)
by Alyssa MaxwellIn post–World War I England, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady’s maid, Eva Huntford, encounter an uncharitable killer at a charity luncheon sponsored by a posh school for girls . . . Good deeds build good character, and good character is what the Haverleigh School for Young Ladies is all about. Lady Phoebe—with the tireless assistance of Eva—has organized a luncheon at the school to benefit wounded veterans of the Great War, encouraging the students to participate in the cooking and the baking. But too many cooks do more than spoil the broth—they add up to a recipe for disaster when the school’s headmistress, Miss Finch, is poisoned. The girls at Haverleigh all come from highly respected families, none of whom will countenance their darling daughters being harassed like common criminals by the local police. So Lady Phoebe steps in to handle the wealthy young debutantes with tact and discretion, while Eva cozies up to the staff. Did one of the girls resent the headmistress enough to do her in? Did a teacher bear a grudge? What about the school nurse, clearly shell shocked from her service in the war? No one is above suspicion, not even members of the school’s governing body, some of whom objected to Miss Finch’s “modern” methods. But Lady Phoebe and Eva will have to sleuth with great stealth—or the cornered killer may try to teach someone else a lethal lesson. Praise for MURDER MOST MALICIOUS, the first Lady and Lady’s Maid Mystery! “Entertaining . . . some of the characters and scenes are highly reminiscent of TV’s Downton Abbey, but Maxwell makes Phoebe and Eva distinctive personalities in their own right.”—Publishers Weekly “Maxwell provides a neat little mystery and a heavily atmospheric look at life in a great house after the trials of the war.”—Kirkus Reviews “Details of the lives of the nobility and their servants, and the aftermath of the war, are woven throughout the story, and the forward-thinking Phoebe is a charming main character.”—Booklist “The story is so good, you don’t want it to end.”—Suspense Magazine “Downton Abbey fans will enjoy Maxwell’s evocative descriptions of a particular society as it transitions from the Edwardian Age to modern times.”—Library Journal
A Pinnacle of Feeling: American Literature and Presidential Government (20/21)
by Sean McCannThere is no more powerful symbol in American political life than the presidency, and the image of presidential power has had no less profound an impact on American fiction. A Pinnacle of Feeling is the first book to examine twentieth-century literature's deep fascination with the modern presidency and with the ideas about the relationship between state power and democracy that underwrote the rise of presidential authority. Sean McCann challenges prevailing critical interpretations through revelatory new readings of major writers, including Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein, Henry Roth, Zora Neale Hurston, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Norman Mailer, Don Delillo, and Philip Roth. He argues that these writers not only represented or satirized presidents, but echoed political thinkers who cast the chief executive as the agent of the sovereign will of the American people. They viewed the president as ideally a national redeemer, and they took that ideal as a model and rival for their own work. A Pinnacle of Feeling illuminates the fundamental concern with democratic sovereignty that informs the most innovative literary works of the twentieth century, and shows how these works helped redefine and elevate the role of executive power in American culture.
A Pint of Plain: Tradition, Change, and the Fate of the Irish Pub
by Bill BarichAfter meeting an Irishwoman in London and moving to Dublin, Bill Barich?a “blow-in,” or stranger, in Irish parlance?found himself looking for a traditional Irish pub to be his local. There are nearly 12,000 pubs in Ireland, so he appeared to have plenty of choices. He wanted a pub like the one in John Ford's classic movie, The Quiet Man, offering talk and drink with no distractions, but such pubs are now scare as publicans increasingly rely on flat-screen televisions, rock music, even Texas Hold ‘Em to attract a dwindling clientele. For Barich, this signaled that something deeper was at play?an erosion of the essence of Ireland, perhaps without the Irish even being aware. A Pint of Plain is Barich's witty, deeply observant portrait of an Ireland vanishing before our eyes. While 85 percent of the Irish still stop by a pub at least once a month, strict drunk-driving laws have helped to kill business in rural areas. Even traditional Irish music, whose rich roots “connect the past to the present and close a circle,” is much less prominent in pub life. Ironically, while Irish pubs in the countryside are closing at the alarming rate of one per day, plastic IPC-type pubs are being born in foreign countries at the exact same rate. From the famed watering holes of Dublin to tiny village pubs, Barich introduces a colorful array of characters, and, ever pursuing craic, the ineffable Irish word for a good time, engages in an unvarnished yet affectionate discussion about what it means to be Irish today.
A Pioneer in Yokohama: A Dutchman's Adventures in the New Treaty Port
by Martha Chaiklin C.T. Assendelft de ConinghIn relating the story of his life on the island of Deshima and in the port of Yokohama during the late 1850s, Dutch merchant C. T. Assendelft de Coningh provides both an unprecedented eyewitness account of daily life in the Japanese treaty ports and a unique perspective on the economic, military, and political forces the Western imperial powers brought to bear on newly opened Japan.A general Introduction provides essential historical and cultural background as well as a brief biography of De Coningh; substantial footnotes explain those terms, names, and cultural references that may be unfamiliar to modern readers. Thirteen illustrations are included, as are a chronology of events, a bibliography, and an index.
A Pioneer of Management Research and Education in Japan: Challenges from Kobe University Business School
by Izumi Mitsui Norio Kambayashi Kyohei HiranoThe purpose of this book is to clarify the mission and history of Kobe University Business School (KUBS), not only for the development of management education but also for the familiarization of industry in Japan with the ideas of modern management. Kobe University was the first in Japan to establish a faculty of business administration and has continued to conduct research and education in the field to this day. Under the influence of Germany and the USA, the academic area of management in Japan has achieved unique development not witnessed in other countries. Since 1902, when its predecessor, Kobe Higher Commercial School, was established, KUBS has been a pioneer of research and education in management studies in Japan by overcoming many obstacles and difficulties.Even now in the age of globalization, the spirit of innovation and liberal academic style, from the time of its establishment, are inherent in KUBS, and the faculty members have made great efforts to be innovative in management studies. This book aims to explore the mission and history of KUBS and to elucidate the development process of Japanese-style management research and education by introducing the diverse areas of management studies and the profiles of researchers.
A Pioneer’s Search for an Ideal Home: A Book of Personal Memoirs
by Phoebe Goodell JudsonPhoebe Judson was a young bride in 1853 when she and her husband crossed the plains from Ohio to the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory. She was ninety-five when this book was first published in 1925. The years between were spent in “a pioneer’s search for an ideal home” and in living there, when it was finally found at the head of the Nooksack River, almost on the Canadian border.Phoebe Judson’s account of the journey west is based on daily diary entries detailing her fear, excitement, and exhaustion. At the end of the trail, the Judsons encountered hardships aplenty, causing them to abandon a farm and business in Olympia before their arrival in the Nooksack Valley. During the Indian Wars they holed up in a fort at Claquato. In time, Phoebe overcame her fear of the Indians, learned the Chinook language, and won their friendship. All this is told in vivid detail by a woman of great dignity and charm whom readers will long remember. Susan Armitage, professor of history at Washington State University, calls A Pioneer’s Search for an Ideal Home a “classic pioneering account,” important for its woman’s point of view.
A Pious Belligerence: Dialogical Warfare and the Rhetoric of Righteousness in the Crusading Near East (The Middle Ages Series)
by Uri Zvi ShacharIn A Pious Belligerence Uri Zvi Shachar examines one of the most contested and ideologically loaded issues in medieval history, the clash between Christians, Muslims, and Jews that we call the Crusades. He does so not to write about the ways these three groups waged war to hold onto their distinct identities, but rather to think about how these identities were framed in relation to one another. Notions of militant piety in particular provided Muslims, Christians, and Jews paths for thinking about both cultural boundaries and codependencies. Ideas about holy warfare, Shachar contends, were not shaped along sectarian lines, but were dynamically coproduced among the three religions.The final decades of the twelfth century saw a rapid collapse of the Frankish and Ayyubid hegemonies in the Levant, followed by struggles for political dominion that lasted for most of the thirteenth century. The fragmented political landscape gave rise to the formation of multiple coalitions across political, religious, and linguistic divides. Alongside a growing anxiety about the instability of cultural boundaries, there emerged a discourse that sought to realign and reevaluate questions of similarity and difference. Where Christians and Muslims regularly joined forces against their own coreligionists, Shachar writes, warriors were no longer assumed to mark or protect lines of physical or political separation. Contemporary authors recounting these events describe a landscape of questionable loyalties, shifting identities, and unstable appearances.Shachar demonstrates how in chronicles, apocalyptic treatises, and a variety of literary texts in Latin, French, Arabic, Hebrew, and Judeo-Arabic holy warriors are increasingly presented as having been rhetorically and anthropologically shaped through their contacts with their neighbors and adversaries. Writers articulated their thoughts about pious warfare through rhetorical devices that crossed confessional lines, and the meaning and force of these articulations lay in their invocation of tropes and registers that had purchase in the various literary communities of the Near East. By the late twelfth century, he argues, there had emerged a notion that threads through Christian, Muslim, and Jewish texts alike: that the Holy Land itself generates a particular breed of pious warriors by virtue of the hybridity that it encompasses.
A Pipeline Runs Through It: The Story of Oil from Ancient Times to the First World War
by Keith Fisher'Fascinating revelations' Max Hastings, Sunday Times'An immensely valuable guide to a great and terrible industry' The Economist 'The book I have long been waiting for... Essential reading' Michael KlarePetroleum has always been used by humans: as an adhesive by Neanderthals, as a waterproofing agent in Noah's Ark and as a weapon during the Crusades. Its eventual extraction from the earth in vast quantities transformed light, heat and power. A Pipeline Runs Through It is a fresh, in-depth look at the social, economic, and geopolitical forces involved in our transition to the modern oil age. It tells an extraordinary origin story, from the pre-industrial history of petroleum through to large-scale production in the mid-nineteenth century and the development of a dominant, fully-fledged oil industry by the early twentieth century.This was always a story of imperialist violence, economic exploitation and environmental destruction. The near total eradication of the Native Americans of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio has barely been mentioned as a precondition for the emergence of the first oil region in the United States. The growth of Royal Dutch-Shell involved the genocidal subjugation of people of the Dutch East Indies and the exploitation of oil in the Middle East arose seamlessly out of Britain's prior political and military interventions in the region. Finally, in an entirely new analysis, the book shows how the British navy's increasingly desperate dependence on vulnerable foreign sources of oil may have been a catalytic ingredient in the outbreak of the First World War.The rise of oil has shaped the modern world, and this is the book to understand it.
A Pirate of Her Own (The Sea Wolves Series #2)
by Kinley MacGregorUSA Today bestselling author Kinley MacGregor’s swashbuckling, romantic adventure A Pirate of Her Own is “a delight. Romping good fun.” —New York Times bestselling author Cathy MaxwellFew know Morgan Drake’s true name—but many fear the Sea Wolf, the scourge of the ocean, a fearless pirate who frees impressed American sailors from British vessels. Now a beautiful reporter is willing to risk her life, her innocence, and her heart to reveal the secrets that Morgan is determined to protect at any cost . . .A headstrong and courageous young woman in a man’s world, Serenity James knows she is barely tolerated in her father’s newspaper office. An exclusive story about the dreaded Sea Wolf, however, will earn her the respect she so fervently desires. But she never expected to be kidnapped by the sexy and dangerous brigand whose bold exploits have fired her imagination—or to discover the adventure she’s always longed for in Morgan Drake’s passionate caress.“Kinley MacGregor has written an old-fashioned swashbuckler filled with romance, adventure, bawdy scenes and enough chills and thrills to keep you burning the midnight oil. An exciting tale, beautifully told.” —New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs“Heart stopping adventure, a romance at times poignant, at times hilarious . . . and a compelling plot. Ms. MacGregor has a gift for storytelling that makes A Pirate of Her Own . . . impossible to put down.” —Affaire de CoeurThe Sea WolvesMaster of SeductionA Pirate of Her Own
A Pirate's Life for She: Swashbuckling Women Through the Ages
by Laura Sook DuncombePirates are a perennially popular subject, depicted often in songs, stories, and Halloween costumes. Yet the truth about pirates—who they were, why they went to sea, and what their lives were really like—is seldom a part of the conversation. In this Seven Seas history of the world's female buccaneers, A Pirate's Life for She tells the story of 16 women who through the ages sailed alongside—and sometimes in command of—their male counterparts. These women came from all walks of life but had one thing in common: a desire for freedom. History has largely ignored these female swashbucklers, until now. Here are their stories, from ancient Norse princess Alfhild to Sayyida al-Hurra of the Barbary corsairs; from Grace O'Malley, who terrorized shipping operations around the British Isles during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I; to Cheng I Sao, who commanded a fleet of 1,400 ships off China in the early 19th century. Author Laura Sook Duncombe also looks beyond the fact that these women are not easy heroines: they are lawbreakers. Rather than defend their illegal actions, A Pirate's Life for She tells their full stories, focusing on the reasons why these women became pirates. It is possible to admire the courage, determination and skills these women possessed without endorsing the actions for which they used them. These stories of women who took control of their own destinies in a world where the odds were against them will inspire young women to reach for their own dreams.