• Savage Kingdom

  • The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America
  • By: Benjamin Woolley
  • Narrated by: David Drummond
  • Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (133 ratings)

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Savage Kingdom  By  cover art

Savage Kingdom

By: Benjamin Woolley
Narrated by: David Drummond
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Publisher's summary

Published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first American colony, Savage Kingdom presents a bold, even reckless, political adventure driven by a sense of imperial destiny and dogged by official hostility.

Four centuries ago, and 14 years before the Mayflower, a group of men - led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric, and a government spy - left London aboard a fleet of three ships to start a new life in America. They arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1607 and set about trying to create a settlement on a tiny island in the James River. Despite their shortcomings, and against the odds, they built Jamestown, a ramshackle outpost that laid the foundations of the British Empire and the United States of America.

Drawing on new discoveries, neglected sources, and manuscript collections scattered across the world, Savage Kingdom challenges the textbook image of Jamestown as a mere money-making venture. It reveals a reckless, daring enterprise led by outcasts of the Old World who found themselves interlopers in a new one. It charts their journey into a beautiful landscape and a sophisticated culture that they found both ravishing and alien, which they yearned to possess but threatened to destroy. They called their new home a "savage kingdom", but it was the savagery they had experienced in Europe that had driven them across the ocean and which they hoped to escape by building in America "one of the most glorious nations under the sun".

An intimate story in an epic setting, Woolley shows how the land of Pocahontas came to be drawn into a new global order, reaching from London to the Orinoco Delta, from the warring kingdoms of Angola to the slave markets of Mexico, from the gates of the Ottoman Empire to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

©2007 Benjamin Woolley (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Highly readable....Fast-paced narrative." (Publishers Weekly)
"Brilliantly framed narrative...fascinating....A well-told story." (Kirkus)

What listeners say about Savage Kingdom

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Interesting story - poor narration

I really wanted to love this story, I did. Being here in Virginia, there is alot of interest of the Jamestown Settlement. There is alot of interesting details but the delivery is what's lacking. It was like listening to a dull lecture. I've liked most things I've downloaded here but this is by far the worst thing I've listened to.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Very Interesting

Very intersting early Virginia history. You can not help wondering after the first few chapters why they kept trying, but they did.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Jamestown

One of the best books on Jamestown. As a member of this group, many good facts came to light and enriched my experience.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Disorganized

Hard to follow- poorly organized-never finished it.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

ACCURATE

If the early Colonist knew how this new land would end up they would have never gotten off the ships.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding!

Listened to it all at once, could not cut it off.
Great work all 'round.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating history!

I was instantly hooked by this history, and there was never a dull moment. It's an interesting subject anyway, but this book was particularly good. The author tries to understand both the English and Native side of the story, and in his exploration finds fascinating parallels between the two cultures. Well narrated, and just a great book.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

A great story, a fascinating adventure.

It's a wonder they even survived, let alone accomplished anything at all. And this from the greatest world power of the time.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Utterly riveting, deeply impactful

Classic storytelling meets meticulous research. Glorious characters in a hideous lottery of life, death and almost unbearable cruelty and injustice. I listen while doing long training runs often for 6 hours or so primarily using trails made by American Indians. Perfect audible book as I know I will listen to it again.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring!!!!!!

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Very boring, worse than a text book too much back ground on people that meant nothing to story, Worst book I have listen too.

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1 person found this helpful