A powerful expose of the family court system's prejudice against mothers trying to protect their sexually abused children.

From the bestselling author of Tulipomania comes Batavia’s Graveyard, the spellbinding true story of mutiny, shipwreck, murder, and survival. It was the autumn of 1628, and the Batavia, the Dutch East India Company’s flagship, was loaded with a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java. The Batavia was the pride of the Company’s fleet, a tangible symbol of the world’s richest and most powerful commercial monopoly. She set sail with great fanfare, but the Batavia and her gold would never reach Java, for the Company had also sent along a new employee, Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a bankrupt and disgraced man who possessed disarming charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, Jeronimus soon sparked a mutiny that seemed certain to succeed—but for one unplanned event: In the dark morning hours of June 3, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The commander of the ship and the skipper evaded the mutineers by escaping in a tiny lifeboat and setting a course for Java—some 1,800 miles north—to summon help. Nearly all of the passengers survived the wreck and found themselves trapped on a bleak coral island without water, food, or shelter. Leaderless, unarmed, and unaware of Jeronimus’s treachery, they were at the mercy of the mutineers. Jeronimus took control almost immediately, preaching his own twisted version of heresy he’d learned in Holland’s secret Anabaptist societies. More than 100 people died at his command in the months that followed. Before long, an all-out war erupted between the mutineers and a small group of soldiers led by Wiebbe Hayes, the one man brave enough to challenge Jeronimus’s band of butchers. Unluckily for the mutineers, the Batavia’s commander had raised the alarm in Java, and at the height of the violence the Company’s gunboats sailed over the horizon. Jeronimus and his mutineers would meet an end almost as gruesome as that of the innocents whose blood had run on the small island they called Batavia’s Graveyard. Impeccably researched and beautifully written, Batavia’s Graveyard is the next classic of narrative nonfiction, the book that secures Mike Dash’s place as one of the finest writers of the genre.

A bloody mutiny on a whaling journey, followed by an incredible tale of survival on land and sea. Samuel Comstock knew he was born to do some great thing, but his only legacy was a reign of terror. Two years out of Nantucket on a whaling voyage in 1824, he organized a mutiny and murdered the officers of the Globe. It was a premeditated act; in his sea chest Comstock carried the seeds, tools, and weapons with which he would found his own island kingdom. He had often described these plans to one of his brothers, William. But the chief witness and chronicler of the mutiny was young George Comstock, who neither participated in nor approved of his brother's savage deed. Within days of settling on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands, Comstock was murdered by his fellow mutineers. Six innocent seamen—George among them—seized the Globe and escaped; most of the rest were killed by natives. Two survivors lived for twenty-two months, half-prisoners and half-adoptees of the natives, until they were rescued in a bold and dangerous maneuver by a landing party from the U.S. schooner Dolphin. The Globe's story is one of terror, adventure, endurance, and luck. It is also the story of one of the most bizarre and frightening minds that ever went to sea.

A brave collection of essays by rabbis, educators, lawyers, and psychotherapists on sexual abuse within the Jewish clergy

The wreck of the Nottingham Galley on Boon Island and the resultant rumors of insurance fraud, mutiny, treason, and cannibalism was one of the most sensational stories of the early 18th century. Shortly after departing England with Captain John Deane at the helm, his brother Jasper and another investor aboard, and a skeleton crew, the ship encountered French privateers on her way to Ireland, where she then lingered for weeks picking up cargo. They eventually headed into the North Atlantic later in the season than was reasonably safe and found themselves shipwrecked on the notorious Boon Island, just off the New England coast. Captain Deane offered one version of the events that led them to the barren rock off the coast of Maine; his crew proposed another. The story contains mysteries that endure to this day, yet no contemporary non-fiction account of the story exists. In the hands of skilled storytellers Andrew Vietze and Stephen Erickson, this becomes a historical adventure-mystery that will appeal to readers of South and The Perfect Storm.

Tacitus' Annals is the central historical source for first-century C.E. Rome. It is prized by historians since it provides the best narrative material for the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero, as well as a probing analysis of the imperial system of government. But the Annals should be seen as far more than an historical source, a mere mine for the reconstruction of the facts of Roman history. While the Annals is a superb work of history, it has also become a central text in the western literary, political, and even philosophical traditions - from the Renaissance to the French and American revolutions, and beyond. This volume attempts to enhance the reader's understanding of how this book of history could have such a profound effect. Chapters will address the purpose, form, and method of Roman historical writing, the ethnic biases of Tacitus, and his use of sources. Since Tacitus has been regarded as one of the first analysts of the psychopathology of political life, the book will examine the emperors, the women of the court, and the ambitious entourage of freedmen and intellectuals who surround every Roman ruler. The final chapter will examine the impact of Tacitus' Annals since their rediscovery by Boccaccio in the 14th century.

A collection of work that attempts to reflect the diversity of travel literature from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This literature often reveals something of the cultural and gender difference of the travellers, as well as ideas on colonialism, anthropology and slavery.