Filled with unforgettable characters and martime adventure, the incredible story of a forgotten war that shaped the fate of the United States—and the entire Western Hemisphere. In the early 18th century, the British and Spanish Empires were fighting for economic supremacy in the Americas. Tensions between the two powers were high, and wars blossomed like violent flowers for nearly a hundred years, from the War of Spanish Succession (sometimes known as Queen Anne's War in the Americas), culminating in the War of Jenkins' Ear. This war would lay the ground work for the French and Indian War and, eventually, the War of the American Revolution. The War of Jenkins' Ear was a world war in the truest sense, engaging the major European powers on battlefields ranging from Europe to the Americas to the Asian subcontinent. Yet the conflict that would eventually become known as the War of Jenkins' Ear—a moniker coined by the 19th century historian Robert Carlyle more than a century later—is barely known to us today. Yet it resulted in the invasion of Georgia and even involved members of George Washington’s own family. It would cost fifty-thousand lives, millions in treasure, and over six hundred ships. With vivid prose, Robert Gaudi takes the reader from the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay to the rocky shores of Tierra del Fuego. We travel around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Pacific to the Philippines and the Cantonese coast, with stops in Cartagena, Panama, and beyond. Yet even though it happened decades before American independence, The War of Jenkins' Ear reveals that this was truly an American war; a hard-fought, costly struggle that determined the fate of the Americas, and in which, for the first time, American armies participated. In this definitive work of history—the only single comprehensive volume on the subject—The War of Jenkins’ Ear explores the war that establed the future of two entire continents.

Toby Jenkins doesn't like boarding school. He gets called Jinks and thinks he will never fit in. But then he meets a strange boy named Christopher who believes that he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. When the village boy "oiks" start a war with the schoolboy "toffs," Toby is caught in the middle. Can Christopher provide the miracle that Toby needs?

Disaster on the Spanish Main unveils and illuminates an overlooked yet remarkable episode of European and American military history and a land-sea venture to seize control of the Spanish West Indies that ended in ghastly failure. Thirty-four years before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, a significant force of American soldiers deployed overseas for the first time in history. Colonial volunteers, 4,000 strong, joined 9,000 British soldiers and 15,000 British sailors in a bold amphibious campaign against the key port of Cartagena de Indias. From its first chapter, Disaster on the Spanish Main reveals a virtually unknown adventure, engrosses with the escalating conflict, and leaves the reader with an appreciation for the struggles and sacrifices of the 13,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines who died trying to conquer part of Spain's New World empire. Disaster on the Spanish Main breaks new ground on the West Indies expedition in style, scope, and perspective and uncovers the largely untold American side of the story.

The British and the Spanish had long been in conflict, often clashing over politics, trade, and religion. But in the early decades of the eighteenth century, these empires signed an asiento agreement granting the British South Sea Company a monopoly on the slave trade in the Spanish Atlantic, opening up a world of uneasy collaboration. British agents of the Company moved to cities in the Caribbean and West Indies, where they braved the unforgiving tropical climate and hostile religious environment in order to trade slaves, manufactured goods, and contraband with Spanish colonists. In the process, British merchants developed relationships with the Spanish—both professional and, at times, personal. The Temptations of Trade traces the development of these complicated relationships in the context of the centuries-long imperial rivalry between Spain and Britain. Many British Merchants, in developing personal ties to the Spanish, were able to collect potentially damaging information about Spanish imperial trade, military defenses, and internal conflict. British agents juggled personal friendships with national affiliation—and, at the same time, developed a network of illicit trade, contraband, and piracy extending beyond the legal reach of the British South Sea Company and often at the Company's direct expense. Ultimately, the very smuggling through which these empires unwittingly supported each other led to the resumption of Anglo-Spanish conflict, as both empires cracked down on the actions of traders within the colonies. The Temptations of Trade reveals the difficulties of colonizing regions far from strict imperial control, where the actions of individuals could both connect empires and drive them to war.

The incredible true account of World War I in Africa and General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the last undefeated German commander. “Let me say straight out that if all military histories were as thrilling and well written as Robert Gaudi’s African Kaiser, I might give up reading fiction and literary bio­graphy… Gaudi writes with the flair of a latter-day Macaulay. He sets his scenes carefully and describes naval and military action like a novelist.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post As World War I ravaged the European continent, a completely different theater of war was being contested in Africa. And from this very different kind of war, there emerged a very different kind of military leader.... At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with one another not just in the bloody trenches, but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history. With the now-legendary Schutztruppe (Defensive Force), von Lettow-Vorbeck and a small cadre of hardened German officers fought alongside their fanatically devoted native African allies as equals, creating the first truly integrated army of the modern age. African Kaiser is the fascinating story of a forgotten guerrilla campaign in a remote corner of Equatorial Africa in World War I; of a small army of ultraloyal African troops led by a smaller cadre of rugged German officers—of white men and black who fought side by side. But mostly it is the story of von Lettow-Vorbeck—the only undefeated German commmander in the field during World War I and the last to surrender his arms.

In The Spanish Monarchy and the Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717-1739), Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso analyzes the politics behind the most salient Bourbon reform introduced in Spanish America during the early eighteenth century.

In early modern Britain, there was an argument that war at sea, especially war in Spanish America, was an ideal means of warfare, offering the prospect of rich gains at relatively little cost whilst inflicting considerable damage on enemy financial resources. This book examines that argument, tracing its origin to the glorious memory of Elizabethan maritime war, discussing its supposed economic advantages, and investigating its influence on British politics and naval policy during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13) and after. The book reveals that the alleged economic advantages of war at sea were crucial in attracting the support of politicians of different political stances. It shows how supporters of war at sea, both in the government as well as in the opposition, tried to implement pro-maritime war policy by naval operations, colonial expeditions and by legislation, and how their attempts were often frustrated by diplomatic considerations, the incapacity of naval administration, and by conflicting interests between different groups connected to the West Indian colonies and Spanish American trade. It demonstrates how, after the War of the Spanish Succession, arguments for active colonial maritime war continued to be central to political conflict, notably in the opposition propaganda campaigns against the Walpole ministry, culminating in the War of Jenkins's Ear against Spain in 1739. The book also includes material on the South Sea Company, showing how the foundation of this company, later the subject of the notorious 'Bubble', was a logical part of British strategy. Shinsuke Satsuma completed his doctorate in maritime history at the University of Exeter.