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...

Sailing on the Chesapeake Bay's myriad inlets in summer, it is hard to imagine that, come January, icebreakers may be plowing the waters you cruised in July. When portions of the Great Shellfish Bay are iced up, the flow of commerce is impeded. At the turn of the nineteenth century, with the center of the new nation's government established it its arms, a frozen Bay meant that the United States' emergence to a status on par with the foremost nations...