Ric Berman examines the genesis of freemasonry in South Carolina and Georgia and how the lodge gained status and influence as a result of the prominence of its leading members. Although there were other clubs and societies that may have been more exclusive, none possessed the deemed antiquity and reputation of freemasonry. Indeed, the lodge carved out a position as the South's leading social forum to the extent that membership became self-reinforcing. 'Loyalists & Malcontents' explores the multiple interconnections that made up the cousinage of planters, merchants and lawyers that dominated the Deep South, and provides portraits of the patriots and loyalists that gave freemasonry its political influence before, during and after America's War of Independence. The book sheds new light on the origins of freemasonry in the Deep South and throws into relief its close interaction with American politics and society. The principal appendices offer insights into slavery in the colonial South and into America's masonic shift away from the Grand Lodge of England towards an embrace of 'Antients' freemasonry.

In 1783 and 1784, some fifty thousand Americans felt that they could not support the revolution against Britain. They were called Loyalists – and there would be no place for them in the new United States. As they streamed into the Canadian colonies to the north, they changed forever the face of settlement there. Their arrival would eventually lead to the formation of the provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario. First published in hardcover in 1984, the bicentenary of the migration, The Loyalists tells the very human story of these people – of the societies that shaped them, the attitudes that motivated them, and the circumstances that determined their future and influenced the future of Canada. It went on to win the Secretary of State's Prize for Excellence in Canadian Studies.

"From Empire to Revolution is the first biography devoted to an in-depth examination of the life and conflicted career of Sir James Wright (1716-1785). Greg Brooking uses Wright's life as a means to better understand the complex struggle for power in both colonial Georgia and the larger British Empire. James Wright lived a transatlantic life, taking advantage of every imperial opportunity afforded him. He earned numerous important government posts and amassed an incredible fortune, totaling over £100,000 sterling. An English-born grandson of Chief Justice Sir Robert Wright, James Wright was raised in Charleston, South Carolina following his father's appointment as that colony's chief justice. Young James served South Carolina in a number of capacities, public and ecclesiastical, prior to his admittance to London's famed Gray's Inn to study law. Most notably, he was appointed South Carolina's attorney general and colonial agent to London prior to his gubernatorial appointment in Georgia in 1761. His long imperial career delicately balanced dual loyalties to Crown and colony and offers a crucial lens on loyalism and the American Revolution that also connects a number of contexts important in recent early American and British scholarship, including imperial and Atlantic history, Indigenous borderlands, race and slavery, and popular politics"--

Based on considerable empirical research, this second volume of an analytical history of social power deals with power relations between the Industrial Revolution and the First World War, focusing on France, Great Britain, Hapsburg Austria, Prussia/Germany and the United States.

THE ROAD TO DUNE is a compilation of material celebrating – and adding to – the epic Dune novels. In this fascinating volume, the world's millions of Dune fans can now read – at long last – the unpublished chapters and scenes from the original Dune books; as well as correspondence with Frank Herbert relating to DUNE; short stories by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and also SPICE PLANET, an original novella by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, based on a detailed outline left by Frank Herbert. 'Frank Herbert would surely be delighted and proud of this continuation of his vision.' Dean Koontz

Allan Kulikoff's provocative new book traces the rural origins and growth of capitalism in America, challenging earlier scholarship and charting a new course for future studies in history and economics. Kulikoff argues that long before the explosive growth of cities and big factories, capitalism in the countryside changed our society- the ties between men and women, the relations between different social classes, the rhetoric of the yeomanry, slave migration, and frontier settlement. He challenges the received wisdom that associates the birth of capitalism wholly with New York, Philadelphia, and Boston and show how studying the critical market forces at play in farm and village illuminates the defining role of the yeomen class in the origins of capitalism.

The late seventeenth century was a period of extraordinary turbulence and political violence in Britain, the like of which has never been seen since. Beginning with the Restoration of the monarchy after the Civil War, this book traces the fate of the monarchy from Charles II's triumphant accession in 1660 to the growing discontent of the 1680s. Harris looks beyond the popular image of Restoration England revelling in its freedom from the austerity of Puritan rule under a merry monarch and reconstructs the human tragedy of Restoration politics where people were brutalised, hounded and exploited by a regime that was desperately insecure after two decade of civil war and republican rule.