Why did the United States become a global power? Frank Ninkovich shows that a cultural predisposition for thinking in global terms blossomed in the late nineteenth century, making possible the rise to world power as American liberals of the time took a wide-ranging interest in the world. Of little practical significance during a period when isolationism reigned supreme in U.S. foreign policy, this rich body of thought would become the cultural foundation of twentieth-century American internationalism.

In the thirty years after the Civil War, the United States blew by Great Britain to become the greatest economic power in world history. That is a well-known period in history, when titans like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan walked the earth. But as Charles R. Morris shows us, the platform for that spectacular growth spurt was built in the first half of the century. By the 1820s, America was already the world's most productive manufacturer, and the most intensely commercialized society in history. The War of 1812 jumpstarted the great New England cotton mills, the iron centers in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and the forges around the Great Lakes. In the decade after the War, the Midwest was opened by entrepreneurs. In this beautifully illustrated book, Morris paints a vivid panorama of a new nation buzzing with the work of creation. He also points out the parallels and differences in the nineteenth century American/British standoff and that between China and America today.

This fascinating story revolves around an invention that lets people view history by accessing the light absorbed by stones throughout history. Using this time viewer, the book's characters witness the extinction of dinosaurs, and they particularly follow one dinosaur, named Belshazzar, who is a huge flesh eater.

In the early 1800s, American ships off the coast of North Africa routinely found themselves the targets of Muslim pirates. These sea raiders, or 'corsairs' as they were known, sought captives to enslave in the Ottoman Empire's galleys, mines and harems. When reports circulated of white Christians being shackled to oars, smashing rocks in mines and being sold into sexual slavery, the American public became incensed. The leaders of the young republic were forced to act and with remarkable dexterity built a fleet of ships that grew into a fighting force powerful enough to withstand its first major test: The Barbary Wars.

The Hakluyt Handbook provides a reference guide to the works of the Reverend Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616) and a critical evaluation of his achievements as a collector, editor, translator and author of travel literature. In Volume I, part one consists of a series of essays by specialists in the various field with which Hakluyt was concerned and attempts to evaluate his significance for historians, geographers and students of literature and society; part two comprises an analysis of the quality of his selections of material for his greatest collection The Principal Navigations...of the English Nation in a series of regional studies; and part three is a chronology of his life and writings expanded from that in G.B. Parks, Richard Hakluyt and the English Voyagers (1928). Parts four and five (in Volume II) analyse the contents and sources of Hakluyt's three major works Divers Voyages (1582), Principall Navigations (1589) and Principal Navigations (1598-1600), and provide detailed bibliographical material on the works with which Hakluyt was associated. A critical bibliography of secondary works and an analytical list of the publications of the Hakluyt Society, 1846-1973, complete the work. An index of books and articles referred to in the volumes is included. The Hakluyt Handbook has been under consideration by the Hakluyt Society for more than a decade and owes much to the late R.A. Skelton (1906-70). The editor Professor D.B. Quinn has had the generous co-operation of more than twenty members of the Society in its compilation. It is hoped that the volumes will not only have value to members of the Society and to many students of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, but that they will stimulate further research on Richard Hakluyt and a further refinement of our knowledge of Hakluyt's sources and bibliography. The main pagination of this and the following volume (Second Series 145) is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first publis

The Christian church was always destined to find its way to China. Long before the birth of the church, China existed, coalescing around profound philosophical concepts and powerful cultural symbols. It developed into a dynamic and enduring civilization. In time, Christian missionaries arrived on its shores, driven to bring the gospel to this people. This book starts with the story of that journey: the arrival of the missionaries who planted the seeds of the gospel in Chinese soil. As the seeds sprouted and grew, a new story of a unique and distinct Chinese church began. The epic narrative opens from uncertain beginnings in darkness, passes through intense hardship and years of struggle, and culminates with the triumphal emergence of the Chinese church from the shadows into the light of the global stage.

A deeply researched, analytically rich, and vivid account of England's early maritime empire Drawing on a wealth of understudied sources, historian Eleanor Hubbard explores the labor conflicts behind the rise of the English maritime empire. Freewheeling Elizabethan privateering attracted thousands of young men to the sea, where they acquired valuable skills and a reputation for ruthlessness. Peace in 1603 forced these predatory seamen to adapt to a radically changed world, one in which they were expected to risk their lives for merchants' gain, not plunder. Merchant trading companies expected sailors to relinquish their unruly ways and to help convince overseas rulers and trading partners that the English were a courteous and trustworthy "nation." Some sailors rebelled, becoming pirates and renegades; others demanded and often received concessions and shares in new trading opportunities. Treated gently by a state that was anxious to promote seafaring in order to man the navy, these determined sailors helped to keep the sea a viable and attractive trade for Englishmen.