Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America

Drawing on new discoveries, neglected sources, and manuscript collections scattered across the world, Savage Kingdom challenges the textbook image of the first American colony, Jamestown, as a mere money-making venture. Instead, Jamestown is revealed as a reckless, daring enterprise led by outcasts of the Old World who found themselves interlopers in a new one.

Publishers Weekly

This highly readable account of the founding of Jamestown moves from the English throne to the daily struggles of the colony's first settlers and the experience of Virginia's Indians as their relations with colonists became increasingly strained. Here are the famous tales from early Virginia, like Pocahontas's marriage to John Rolfe. But well-known explorers sit cheek by jowl with fascinating, lesser-known people, such as the colonists' wives, who consulted an astrologer to reassure themselves about their husbands' fate on the open seas. Woolley emphasizes both the financial and religious aims of colonization: English backers expected to get rich on the bounty the settlers would uncover and produce (though the first ships of wood and iron ore sent back disappointed the London Company). But Englishmen also saw Virginia as a "religious mission," an opportunity to spread Protestantism abroad. Woolley persuasively argues that the settlers' aggressive response to a 1623 Indian attack became the "defining moment" in the history of English settlement of Virginia-it was through this event, more than any other, that the colonists articulated their connection to their new land and "crafted and honed their American identity." Woolley blends nuanced analysis with fast-paced narrative. 16 pages of color illus. (Apr.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Benjamin Woolley is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. He is the author of the best-selling "The Queen's Conjuror: The Life and Magic of Dr. John Dee" and "Heal Thyself: Nicholas Culpeper and the Civil War for the Heart of Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England". His first book, "Virtual Worlds", was short-listed for the RhOne-Poulenc Prize and has been translated into eight languages. His second work, "The Bride of Science", examined the life of Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter. He has written and presented documentaries for the BBC on subjects ranging from the fight for liberty during the English Civil War to the end of the Space Age. He has won the Arts Journalist of the Year Award and an Emmy for his commentary for Discovery's "Three Minutes to Impact". He lives in London.