Chris Cary

From a Wilderness: Four Stories on the Building of America Chris Cary First American edition

Birth of a nation. Growth of a nation. From a Wilderness is an anthology of four adventure novels rooted in a carefully researched history of the times. The first story begins at Jamestown as a man named Jonathan Strong watches with fascination as a cartwheeling Pocahontas leads a troop of English boys gleefully imitating her. In the second story, the setting shifts from Virginia to another place where newly arrived Europeans struggled against unforgiving terrain: the New England of the Puritans. It draws up a vivid reminder of the imprint that the Puritans stamped onto the American character. Next is an unexpectedly fascinating story that traces the profound influence of Adam Smith's role in molding the American economy and its values. And finally, the fourth novel is the story of the greatest real estate transaction in history, the Louisiana Purchase, told through the lives of two brothers whose clash could decide the fate of the young United States of America. For lovers of history, From a Wilderness will be an irresistible delight, a carefully researched saga that gives detail and color to the defining moments of a nation coming to be. For anyone who loves a great story, these four tales bring you into the world of man against environment, life in the frontier, noblemen, "savages," intrepid explorers, braggarts, liars, cowards, cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, and a whole passel of ordinary guys.