The Voices of the Chesapeake Bay radio show has featured hundreds of people who live, work, and play on the Chesapeake Bay. Now host Michael Buckley brings us a fascinating collection of over 50 of these interviews in written form, providing the reader with glimpses into Chesapeake Bay life from a variety of diverse perspectives. Many people travel across the Chesapeak Bay Bridge and only see a big, flat body of water, but Voices of the Chesapeake Bay will help them see deeply into that water. These accounts open windows-each with a view of the Chesapeake-through which we see history, ecology, economy, and how they intertwine with the human soul.

“An epic history of piracy . . . Goodall explores the role of these legendary rebels and describes the fine line between piracy and privateering.” —WYPR The story of Chesapeake pirates and patriots begins with a land dispute and ends with the untimely death of an oyster dredger at the hands of the Maryland Oyster Navy. From the golden age of piracy to Confederate privateers and oyster pirates, the maritime communities of the Chesapeake Bay are intimately tied to a fascinating history of intrigue, plunder and illicit commerce raiding. Author Jamie L.H. Goodall introduces infamous men like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and “Black Sam” Bellamy, as well as lesser-known local figures like Gus Price and Berkeley Muse, whose tales of piracy are legendary from the harbor of Baltimore to the shores of Cape Charles. “Rather than an unchanging monolith, Goodall creates a narrative filled with dynamic movement and exchange between the characters, setting, conflict, and resolution of her story. Goodall positioned this narrative to be successful on different levels.” —International Social Science Review

In this classic novel, James A. Michener brings his grand epic tradition to bear on the four-hundred-year saga of America’s Eastern Shore, from its Native American roots to the modern age. In the early 1600s, young Edmund Steed is desperate to escape religious persecution in England. After joining Captain John Smith on a harrowing journey across the Atlantic, Steed makes a life for himself in the New World, establishing a remarkable dynasty that parallels the emergence of America. Through the extraordinary tale of one man’s dream, Michener tells intertwining stories of family and national heritage, introducing us along the way to Quakers, pirates, planters, slaves, abolitionists, and notorious politicians, all making their way through American history in the common pursuit of freedom. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii. Praise for Chesapeake “Another of James Michener’s great mines of narrative, character and lore.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] marvelous panorama of history seen in the lives of symbolic people of the ages . . . An emotionally and intellectually appealing book.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Michener’s most ambitious work of fiction in theme and scope.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Magnificently written . . . one of those rare novels that is enthusiastically passed from friend to friend.”—Associated Press

Life in the Chesapeake Bay is the most important book ever published on America's largest estuary. Since publication of the first edition in 1984, tens of thousands of naturalists, boaters, fishermen, and conservationists have relied on the book's descriptions of the Bay's plants, animals, and diverse habitats. Superbly illustrated and clearly written, this acclaimed guide describes hundreds of plants and animals and their habitats, from diamondback terrapins to blue crabs to hornshell snails. Now in its third edition, the book has been updated with a new gallery of thirty-nine color photographs and dozens of new species descriptions and illustrations. The new edition retains the charm of an engaging classic while adding a decade of new research. This classic guide to the plants and animals of the Chesapeake Bay will appeal to a variety of readers—year-round residents and summer vacationers, professional biologists and amateur scientists, conservationists and sportsmen.

The most contentious event in our nation's history, the Civil War deeply divided families, friends, and communities. Both sides fought to define the conflict on their own terms -- Lincoln and his supporters struggled to preserve the Union and end slavery, while the Confederacy waged a battle for the primacy of local liberty or "states' rights." But the war had its own peculiar effects on the four border slave states that remained loyal to the Union. Internal disputes and shifting allegiances injected uncertainty, apprehension, and violence into the everyday lives of their citizens. No state better exemplified the vital role of a border state than Maryland -- where the passage of time has not dampened debates over issues such as the alleged right of secession and executive power versus civil liberties in wartime. In Maryland Voices of the Civil War, Charles W. Mitchell draws upon hundreds of letters, diaries, and period newspapers to portray the passions of a wide variety of people -- merchants, slaves, soldiers, politicians, freedmen, women, clergy, civic leaders, and children -- caught in the emotional vise of war. Mitchell reinforces the provocative notion that Maryland's Southern sympathies -- while genuine -- never seriously threatened to bring about a Confederate Maryland. Maryland Voices of the Civil War illuminates the human complexities of the Civil War era and the political realignment that enabled Marylanders to abolish slavery in their state before the end of the war.