When a strange man washes ashore on an island, the inhabitants reluctantly take him in and grow to fear and hate his presence.

A gripping narrative of New Netherland–a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan–that transforms our understanding of early America. When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Russell Shorto draws on this remarkable archive in The Island at the Center of the World, which has been hailed by The New York Times as “a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past.” The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

A gripping and beautifully written dystopian page-turner from New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist ALLEGRA GOODMAN. In the eighteenth glorious year of Enclosure, long after The Flood, a young girl named Honor moves with her parents to Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life on the tropical island is peaceful—there is no sadness and no visible violence in this world. Earth Mother and her Corporation have created New Weather. The sky is always blue and it almost never rains. Every family fits into its rightful, orderly, and predictable place… Except Honor’s. Her family does not follow the rules. They ignore curfew, sing songs, and do not pray to Earth Mother. Honor doesn’t fit in with the other children at the Old Colony School. Then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart who slowly helps her uncover a terrible secret about the Island: Sooner or later, those who do not fit disappear, and they don’t ever come back. Honor knows her family could be next, and when the unthinkable happens, she must make the dangerous journey to the Other Side of the Island—before Earth Mother comes for her too…

While shipwrecked on the island of Pala, Will Farnaby, a disenchanted journalist, discovers a utopian society that has flourished for the past 120 years. Although he at first disregards the possibility of an ideal society, as Farnaby spends time with the people of Pala his ideas about humanity change. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Robben Island is a low-lying outcrop of rock and sand guarding the entrance to South Africa's Table Bay. Although it is just a few kilometres long and a barely swimmable distance from Cape Town, it may well be the most significant historical site in South Africa today.

This extensively illustrated book is the only comprehensive account of the island of South Georgia.

Disappear in a world that will fascinate both kids and adults. Dr. Richard Osmer, a Princeton Seminary Professor, said, "I read this story and loved it." Order your copy today.

Native only to the California Channel Islands, the island fox is the smallest canid in North America. Populations on four of the islands were threatened to extinction in the 1990s due to human-mediated predation and disease. This is the first account of the natural history and ecology of the island fox, illustrating both the vulnerability of island ecosystems and the efficacy of cooperative conservation measures. It explains in detail the intense conservation actions required to recover fox populations, such as captive breeding and reintroduction, and large-scale ecosystem manipulation. These actions were successful due in large part to extraordinary collaboration among the scientists, managers and public advocates involved in the recovery effort. The book also examines the role of some aspects of island fox biology, characteristic of the 'island syndrome', in facilitating their recovery, including high productivity and an apparent adaptation to periodic genetic bottlenecks.

Colonized as early as 13,500 years ago, the Northern Channel Islands of California offer some of the earliest evidence of human habitation along the west coast of North America. The Chumash people who lived on these islands are considered to be among the most socially and politically complex hunter-gatherers in the world. This book provides a powerful and innovative synthesis of the cultural and environmental history of the chain of islands. Douglas J. Kennett shows that the trends in cultural elaboration were, in part, set into motion by a series of dramatic environmental events that were the catalyst for the unprecedented social and political complexity observed historically.

An island is cursed by a person who knows black magic then three years later, people start hearing about it and they want to know what really happen on the island. So a Captain and a Sheriff get on a ship and set out on an adventure to find out what happen on the island years ago. As they do they run into many different obstacles, including finding the person who did this, dealing with the weird things that happen on the island and one of them reunites with an their past. These are just a few of the things that happen on The Island.

''THE ISLAND' IS A BOOK ABOUT A REAL PLACE IN RURAL MINNESOTA. IT IS ABOUT REAL PEOPLE WHO WERE HIT HARD BY THE GREAT INFLUENZA OF THE EARLY 1900'S AND ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE YOUNGEST CHILD IN A FAMILY OF SIX CHILDREN LEFT ORPHANED WHO WAS ADOPTED OUT TO A FAMILY IN A NEARBY CITY. MOST OF HIS LIFE WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THIS STORY AND IS BASED ON TRUE FACTS.