“The plot twists ingeniously...an engaging, often chilling book.”—The New York Times Book Review A writer in California. A doctor in Boston. A motel owner and his employee in Nevada. A priest in Chicago. A robber in New York. A little girl in Las Vegas. They’re a handful of people from across the country, living through eerie variations of the same nightmare. A dark memory is calling out to them. And soon they will be drawn together, deep in the heart of a sprawling desert, where the terrifying truth awaits...
In 1609, on a voyage to resupply England's troubled Jamestown colony, the Sea Venture was caught in a hurricane and shipwrecked off the coast of Bermuda. The tale of its marooned survivors eventually inspired William Shakespeare's The Tempest, but for one castaway it was only the beginning. A Stranger Among Saints traces the life of Stephen Hopkins, who spent ten months stranded with the Sea Venture crew, during which he was charged with attempted mutiny and condemned to die-only to have his sentence commuted just before it was carried out. Hopkins eventually made it to Jamestown, where he spent six years before returning to England and signing on to another colonial venture, this time with a group of religious radicals on the Mayflower. Hopkins was the only member of the party who had been across the Atlantic before-the only one who'd encountered America's native people and land. The Pilgrims, plagued by disease and contentious early encounters with indigenous Americans, turned to him for leadership. Hopkins played a vital role in bridging the divide of suspicion between the English immigrants and their native neighbours. Without him, these settlers would likely not have lasted through that brutal first year.
This is the story of how British governments have wrestled with policy towards the European Union, written by someone who worked closely with many of Britain's political leaders in shaping an often fraught but always full-frontal relationship between Britain and her European partners.
Traces the history of a magnificent landmark in the history of late medieval art and architecture. As the principal royal chapel in the medieval Palace of Westminster, St Stephen's was at the centre of worship for the Plantagenets, a major collegiate foundation of a new kind for the mid-fourteenth century, and a community of national significance in the development of sacred polyphony. During the Reformation, the Chapel was converted into a meeting place for the House of Commons, which it remained for 300 years, shaping the development of British political culture. Its influence continues to be felt today in the design of the Commons chamber. Following the disastrous Palace fire of 1834, the site of the upper chapel was rebuilt as St Stephen's Hall, a gallery of national history, leading to the Central Lobby of the Houses of Parliament. This book tells the story of St Stephen's Chapel, from the thirteenth century to the present day. Sixteen chapters explain the building and its religious life, its political significance, and the antiquarian rediscovery of its former magnificence. Contributors highlight the interaction between visual and political culture; the contexts of kingship and international rivalry that informed the foundation and construction of chapel and college; the effect of medieval St Stephen's on the development of the House of Commons; the adaptation and re-use of St Mary Undercroft; and the creation of St Stephen's Hall in the 1840s. The hall would become a site of Suffragette activism in the campaign for Votes for Women, marked today by a monumental artwork New Dawn, which is the focus of the final chapter.
