UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · HISTORY · SHIPWRECKS
Alexander McKee
Alexander Paul Charrier McKee OBE (25 July 1918 – 22 July 1992) was a British journalist, military historian, and diver who published nearly thirty books.
In March of 2000, spring arrived early in Montana.
— from Into the blue
Most acclaimed
The Queen's Corsair
In 1577, Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth Harbour with five other ships and 164 men and boys. They were under the Queen’s commission to explore the great South Sea by way of the Strait of Magellan. It had been nearly 60 years since the Spaniard had sailed into the unknown and discovered the natural passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; no one had achieved it since. The purpose of the great voyage was to explore uncharted waters, unclaimed territories, and search for new trading possibilities to bolster England’s declining export trade. To interrupt Spanish and Portuguese dominance in sea trade and wealth flowing from the New World was also of strategic interest. Through remarkably detailed testimony that survived from the depositions made of Drake’s prisoners to Spanish Inquisitors, the ships' logs, and personal diaries, we follow the eventful journey. Through McKee’s narrative, we gain insight into the divisive Drake, what life was like on board ship and under his command, and how his seafaring brilliance led to ultimate success.
Against the Odds
1994
In the circum-Caribbean, nuclear and extended families played an important role in moving people out of slavery and in protecting them from legal and social discrimination. Some of the families studied in this volume were virtual representations of the colonial social order, including the free, the enslaved, white and black. The economic status of family members ranged from slaves without property to planter elites. While miscegenation facilitated manumission for a few, particular for women of colour in Louisiana and Saint-Domingue, more important was the support of other black and coloured family members. This volume examines free black communities in Senegal, South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Cuba, Saint-Domingue, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Suriname to compare the genesis of a free black class within Senegalese, British, French, Spanish and Dutch slave systems.
Into the blue
Three years ago, Susan Edsall's Father, a rebuilder and pilot of antique airplanes, suffered a devastating stroke that left him unable to read, write, speak, tell time, understand the alphabet--or fly. The doctors told Susan the best her family could hope for was that he would learn to play checkers. Susan knew if her dad couldn't fly, he'd just as soon not breathe, so she chose another path. Battling the pessimistic conclusion of the experts--and her own looming fears--she and her sister, Sharon, aka the Blister Sisters, decided to take matters into their own hands. With no medical training but double doses of determination, they bushwhacked their own rehab program and got their father back behind the controls of his beloved open-cockpit biplane and into the air. Susan Edsall's Into the Blue is a powerful family memoir about two feisty sisters from Montana who bring their father back to life--and discover themselves in the process. Inspiring, gritty, and often hilarious, it's also the story of anyone who has ever fought back from a dire prognosis to pursue a cherished dream.