the story of an eighteenth century Cornish mining family.
358484
Ross Poldark returns from America and the in the Revolutionary war to find his fiance preparing to marry his cousin, his estate in ruins, and his father dead. When he adopts a thirteen year old street ruffian housemaid,  he is unaware of how she will further disrupt the life he is trying to  rebuild, or that she may muture to be more than a maid. The video is filled  with authentic Cornish coast scenery and venacular, a love story that holds  true to human nature rather than a script. Although the movie was originally  shown in the seventies, because it is a period piece it still holds its own  today.
3416259
The research is good and gives a an interesting description of one family's rise in wealth on the little island of Barbados.
2176680
A very interesting book; all about Light's ancestors who are just like most of our ancestors--ordinary people, some successful, some not.  Light's way of telling their stories is very engaging and gives a look at the  social history of England from the mid 18th century onwards. It is difficult at times to keep track of all the family members...which brother, cousin, grandmother, or whomever from which side of the family  is being discussed in a given section, but I just let it go and found myself taken in by people the social context.  Who would have thought such ordinary people had led such interesting and dramatic lives.
773231
A well-written, thoroughly researched history of US over
the past 200 years, as seen from the vantage point of
the author's family.
4133194
The story takes place in the late 1800's in the Hudson River valley. The Fletcher family has a violet farming business. The story revolves around Ida who is married to the younger brother of the family, Frank, and her teenaged daughter, Alice. Frank is the black sheep of the family for a prior transgression that hurt the family. His penance to pay back what he owes the family is both monetary and in no ownership of the family business. In order to get more money, he pushes his wife to work as a wet nurse, and wants his daughter, Alice to find a job. He increases pressure on Ida when he brings home an additional baby. Unlike her previous wet nursing assignments, she knows little to nothing about the family of the baby. When he takes Alice to the city for a trip and returns without her, he tells his wife that he has gotten her a factory job. While Ida tries to communicate with her daughter, she receives little response. Alice's friend, Joe, also tries to reach out to her, and when he discovers the truth of her circumstances and comes to Ida, she must make a life changing decision for her family. I found the historical period to be interesting, but had a hard time connecting with the characters, even though I felt for their plight. The story was well written and gave an interesting perspective on the time.
480464
I am acquainted with families in present day Ireland whose family members are present throughout this book. Some have passed on just in recent years. According to them,  the account is  true and accurate and they are delighted that this history was told.
4871127
Thrilled to find great literature about my home state, West Virginia. This novel takes place at the turn of the 20th Century in a company logging town in southern West Virginia. The loggers are hard working men barely making a living wage. Some of these men are ruthless brutes with little or no regard for the women who maintain the homes and farms all week while the men work in the camps. It's a vivid tale told from the viewpoint of one such wife who manages to rise above her suffering and lift up several others with her.
2216848
Very nice! It's a family story. Download and read the extract, and you will surely be enchanted by it.
3631587
An interesting chronicle of a common item that can have a history important to the owners and their families.
3151128
We take things for granted now that people 400 years ago did not. A sack of peppercorn, cloves or nutmeg could have made a man's fortune then, whereas it is commonplace today. Why? The laws of supply and demand, with these commodities coming from the Spice Islands of the East Indies (sometimes known as the Spiceries), far removed from Western Europe where the demand was. Nutmeg was more difficult still, most coming from the remote Banda Islands within the same large group.

Nathaniel Courthope is the man from the title. Strangely enough, the book is not just about him, but about the extra-ordinary struggles of those of the time (roughly 1560 - 1630) to obtain spice. Voyages were very dangerous: pirates, legal pirates (i.e. governments), diseases a-plenty, storms and rocks were some of the many obstacles in the way of the redoubtable men who journeyed from Europe. There was almost a state of war between Britain and other nations (principally the Dutch) in the East Indies for a number of years. Some treachery and dubious torture methods were employed - not all I may add perpetrated against the British; the United Kingdom was responsible for some of the questionable acts.

The absorbing account is told using a great deal of source material, much of this in hardly readable 16th and 17th century language. The reader may learn something of the discovery of Hudson Bay, or the person of Peter Stuyvesant (after whom a brand of cigarettes is named). Above all, he will appreciate the courage in the face of danger of the aforementioned Nathaniel Courthope. For more than four years Courthope and his crew (their ship rendered un-sea worthy, and with little food and water) defended the tiny nutmeg-rich island of Run in the Banda Islands against the Dutch, who controlled the rest of the small group. Courthope himself was finally either shot, or took his own life on the point of capture at sea, by treachery, as one inhabitant of the besieged island betrayed his plans to seek assistance from the natives of Great Banda.

The lasting legacy of Courthope was not the spice trade in the area; that has all but ceased, and the islands in the Banda group are once again an international backwater. It is more the development of the spice trade elsewhere (using nutmeg trees stolen from Run) - and of course the trading of the island that Courthope so steadfastly defended for another island half a world away that was to gain greater prominence in the world. The name of that other island? None other than Manhatten!

Peter Morgan, Bath, UK (morganp@supanet.com)
3362016
My folks were married in 1935 in Northeast Montana.  I'd heard a bit about their hard times.  Was amazed how hard people worked to keep their land dispite the "worst hard times" anyone could imagine.  I loved the historical aspects,details of the story & learning which government programs helped turn things around.
4088046
I bought this book because my family feature in it as the part of the first of the brass mill workers in Bristol, including a photo of an indenture contract. It has added to the history of my family. This book was a great find. Thank you
3924520
What a beautiful story about the lives and life on a cocoa plantation in Guinea prior to Independence.  The story of one family and how the generations are tied together by the past and the future.  A truly fascinating tale!
3836907
Growing up as a "coal miner's daughter" in Ky myself I can assure you this is spot-on accurate. Mining in a KY small town is often the only means to successfully support your family. My father worked in a union mine and after as a "company man" but even union strikes were frightening and often violent as so much was at stake.  We were often shipped off to another town for safety while my dad would guard the house.  This was in the mid 70's as well.

I admire the accurate depiction of the people in this documentary. I expected them to be depicted as sterotypical uneducated southern rednecks and what I saw were wise, passionate and well-spoken (albeit with a southern drawl!)  The WOMEN were amazing and fearless.  Would love to see a followup to what has happened to the town and the people 30+ years later.
3232091
By taking the character of Martha Brown, who was a real person that lived in the 1800's, and weaving a fictional story of what her life may have been like, the author gives us a glimpse of  life in England during this time.  And if you were a member of the poor working class, life was not easy.  You worked very hard, you worked long days, and you worked every day.  There was not much hope for any improvement.
Martha longed to learn to read and write and to see more of the world.  Her mother was very cruel to her and she marries Bernard, who is 20 years older and has a young daughter and son. After several tragedies occur,she eventually marries John Brown, who is 20 years her junior.  Although their marriage seems to begin well, their relationship becomes one of jealousy and physical abuse.
I enjoyed the book but as I read it I kept thinking of how sad the story was.  Only sad things seemed to happen, never happy things.  Such was the life of the poor in 19th century England. In spite of this, it was a good book and I recommend it.
2944567
I was surprised about how engrossed I got reading this saga of a Welsh coal mining family and their trials and tribulations both in Wales and here in America. The book is broken up into segment stories which are both captivating and often times intense. The author's way of presenting the history of this family brings us closer to the characters and the stories seem to come to life. This was indeed, an enjoyable read.
4518077
Imagine the thrill that touches a person at the first Springtime sighting of wild poppies in bloom. If the blossoms are gold, then it's a distinctively California experience, evoking a strong sense of place and of  natural wonder. I felt something of the same qualities of delight and  surprise when I read Shirley Ewart's Highly Respectable Families: The  Cornish of Grass Valley California 1854 - 1954, newly released by Comstock  Bonanza Press. In her words the Cornish migration and assimilation into  Nevada County, California, assumes the energy of a natural force.
At the  center of this ramble through local social history is a tuft of eight  family stories - actually a whole meadow - that exemplify the values of the  immigrants from the southwestern-most corner of the United Kingdom who came  to America to find opportunity for themselves and their children. Here is a  vivid and highly readable account of 100 years of nearly constant  emigration from Cornwall to California. In telling the stories Shirley  enumerates the values that made these families both respected and  successful - self-reliance, devotion to family and church, ethnic identity,  faith in self-improvement, scorn of liquor, impassive acceptance of hard  work and danger, love of music. She explains how these families, who were  the arms and hands of industry in the mine, and the voices and faces of  faith in the church, earned the respect of the wider community. In a new  land they brought an old world culture to full flower.
The vitality of  the book comes from the stories themselves, accounts of representative  families, such as the Henwoods, the Bennallacks, the Tremenwans and others,  all of which turn on  intimate moments of decision and self-revelation. The  book tells the story of the George family and of Harold J. George, who was  offered a cornet if he would learn to play it and who went on to conduct  the fabled Grass Valley Cornish Carol Choir for half a century and to bring  music to children in the Grass Valley schools. It relates the love story of  Jim and Alberta Rowe (grandfather of our Cornish Cousin Winnifred Rowe  Cannon) who reportedly never exchanged a cross word in sixty years of  marriage, and who were determined that their son would never be "a  mucker in a mine." It tells of Mary Anne Mitchell, a young widow and  mother scraping by in Cornwall, who had a proposal of marriage from a  Cornishmen in America she knew primarily through his letters. She  considered the offer and prayed and in the end it was thinking of the  future of her two children that turned the balance. In recounting these  stories Shirley had the help of Harold T. George, whose name also appears  on the book.
Shirley, who spent much of her childhood in St. Ives,  Cornwall, and knows first-hand the hardship of immigration and the miseries  of homesickness, brought a rare understanding to this work. She was never  turned down for an interview, which says as much about her empathy as it  does about the generosity of the families she met. She collected these  stories over two decades and relates them with sympathy and skill. All of  us who are part of the Cornish community owe her a debt of gratitude for  preserving and relating these intimate accounts and we are indebted to her  publisher for presenting them in such an appealing volume.