. . . a superb portrait of the founding, combining brilliant detail with epic sweep.
If you think that American democracy began with the Pilgrims and the Mayflower Compact, my latest book might shake you up. Marooned retells the misunderstood story of Jamestown from the point of view of castaways, deserters, and mutineers. The narrative ranges from the decks of pirate ships to the boards of Shakespeare’s stage, and it introduces the most important founding father you never heard of: Stephen Hopkins, a humble farmer who, on the way to resupply Virginia, ship wrecked on uninhabited Bermuda. He and his fellow castaways tried to live out a real-life “state of nature” long before Thomas Hobbes and John Locke made it the foundation of modern political theory.
This new telling of an old story will change the way you think of Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, Powhatan, the infamous “staving time,” and the whole false start of American history we call Jamestown.
Order from your favorite bookseller today.
(Illustration in the header: Sir George Somers’ map of Bermuda drafted while shipwrecked on that archipelago in 1609-1610. Background: the first page of James Joyce’s epic novel, Ulysses.)