Journeying up the Missouri River in 1830, the wealthy Berrybenders encounter the challenges of the untamed American West before Tasmin Berrybender falls in love with frontiersman and part-time preacher Jim Snow.

In 1830, the Berrybender family - British, aristocratic, and fiercely out of place - abandons their home in England to embark on a journey through the American West just as the frontier is beginning to open up.

The history of modern Nicaragua is populated with leaders promising a new and better day. Inevitably, as Nicaragua and the Politics of Utopia demonstrates, reality casts a shadow and the community must look to the next leader. As an impoverished state, second only to Haiti in the Americas, Nicaragua has been the scene of cyclical attempts and failures at modern development. Author Daniel Chavez investigates the cultural and ideological bases of what he identifies as the three decisive movements of social reinvention in Nicaragua: the regimes of the Somoza family of much of the early to mid-twentieth century; the governments of the Sandinista party; and the present day struggle to adapt to the global market economy. For each era, Chavez reveals the ways Nicaraguan popular culture adapted and interpreted the new political order, shaping, critiquing, or amplifying the regime's message of stability and prosperity for the people. These tactics of interpretation, otherwise known as meaning-making, became all-important for the Nicaraguan people, as they opposed the autocracy of Somocismo, or complemented the Sandinistas, or struggled to find their place in the Neoliberal era. In every case, Chavez shows the reflective nature of cultural production and its pursuit of utopian idealism.

"Isabel is a natural witch with tremendous power, chosen to be the bride of Mordred, the illegitimate son of King Arthur. As the wife of the king's only son and the apprentice of the mysterious Merlin, Isabel finds herself constantly in the middle of everything, whether she wills it or not - from the death of the Lady of the Lake, to Lancelot and Guinevere's affair and Galahad's drawing of the sword from the stone. Through it all there are only two constants: her irrational and obsessive love for the unpredictable Mordred, and her resolute desire to keep and build upon her magic power, even at the expense of her own happiness"--Back cover