Download or read book Fletcher Christian Bounty Mutineer His Life His Fate The Repercussions written by Glynn Christian and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fully colour illustrated in a bigger size (10"x7"), this completely revised edition features new images, new facts and new conclusions that give fresh perspectives to Fletcher's social status and background and explain how these impact on the psychology behind his special friendship with William Bligh and how this turned to tragic personal betrayal on April 28th, 1789. And how his ideas of social revolution led to Pitcairn Island's women being first in the world to have the vote.Follow the sweep of young Fletcher Christian's extraordinary life from Cumbria and the Isle of Man to India, Cape Horn, Tahiti and then to the world's most famous mutiny in HMAV BOUNTY, to his almost forgotten settlement of Fort George on Tubuai, his long South Pacific search for a hidden home and to oblivion on his Pitcairn Island hideout. Still Fletcher Christian's only biography, the book explains why there was never a mutiny of BOUNTY but was a revolt of one man against another, Christian against Bligh.As well as the shocking truth about conditions aboard BOUNTY and how Bligh behaved on a second breadfruit expedition, this book also reveals what Fletcher discovered about Tahitian women's brutal life of infanticide, facial reshaping, food restrictions and more. BOUNTY's women, including his wife Mauatua, were not kidnapped but eagerly escaped with Fletcher Christian and were later willing to entirely reshape their lifestyles, endure bloodshed and massacre on Pitcairn Island to protect their children and to follow Fletcher's legacy of social revolution, eventually becoming first women in the word to have the vote. But who really burned BOUNTY and why are there so many versions of Fletcher Christian's fate? Did he escape and secretly return to Cumberland? Fletcher Christian's descendant Glynn Christian investigates his ancestor's life, his mutiny and the repercussions more thoroughly than any other author has done and finally sails in the wake of Fletcher Christian to Pitcairn Island hoping to solve the mysteries of his fate. This reality-packed narrative proves fact is stranger and more thrilling than fiction, even after two centuries, and further enhances FRAGILE PARADISE, Glynn Christian's widely acclaimed and respected earlier telling of the life of Fletcher Christian BOUNTY Mutineer.

Download or read book Fletcher Christian Bounty Mutineer written by Glynn Christian and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-03 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FULLY ILLUSTRATED IN BLACK AND WHITE WITH MORE THAN FIFTY IMAGES, MANY NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED, this completely revised edition features new images, new facts and new conclusions that give fresh perspectives to Fletcher's social status and background and explain how these impact on the psychology behind his special friendship with William Bligh and how this turned to tragic personal betrayal on April 28th, 1789. And how his ideas of social revolution led to Pitcairn Island's women being first in the world to have the vote.Follow the sweep of young Fletcher Christian's extraordinary life from Cumbria and the Isle of Man to India, Cape Horn, Tahiti and then to the world's most famous mutiny in HMAV BOUNTY, to his almost forgotten settlement of Fort George on Tubuai, his long South Pacific search for a hidden home and to oblivion on his Pitcairn Island hideout. Still Fletcher Christian's only biography, the book explains why there was never a mutiny of BOUNTY but was a revolt of one man against another, Christian against Bligh.As well as the shocking truth about conditions aboard BOUNTY and how Bligh behaved on a second breadfruit expedition, this book also reveals what Fletcher discovered about Tahitian women's brutal life of infanticide, facial reshaping, food restrictions and more. BOUNTY's women, including his wife Mauatua, were not kidnapped but eagerly escaped with Fletcher Christian and were later willing to entirely reshape their lifestyles, endure bloodshed and massacre on Pitcairn Island to protect their children and to follow Fletcher's legacy of social revolution, eventually becoming first women in the word to have the vote. But who really burned BOUNTY and why are there so many versions of Fletcher Christian's fate? Did he escape and secretly return to Cumberland? Fletcher Christian's descendant Glynn Christian investigates his ancestor's life, his mutiny and the repercussions more thoroughly than any other author has done and finally sails in the wake of Fletcher Christian to Pitcairn Island hoping to solve the mysteries of his fate. This reality-packed narrative proves fact is stranger and more thrilling than fiction, even after two centuries, and further enhances FRAGILE PARADISE, Glynn Christian's widely acclaimed and respected earlier telling of the life of Fletcher Christian BOUNTY Mutineer.

Download or read book The Truth About the Mutiny on HMAV Bounty and the Fate of Fletcher Christian written by Glynn Christian and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Truth About the Mutiny on HMAV BOUNTY – and the Fate of Fletcher Christian brings this famed South Pacific saga into the 21st century. By combining unprecedented research into Fletcher Christian and his fate with deep knowledge of Bounty’s Polynesian women, Glynn Christian presents a fresh and comprehensive telling of a powerful maritime adventure that still captivates after 230 years. Of over 3000 books and major articles on the mutiny, or the five feature films starring such as Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson, none has told the true story as until 1982, no author knew the real Fletcher Christian, or could understand his relationship with William Bligh, his mentor-turned-nemesis. Glynn Christian’s extraordinary research into Bligh, Christian and Bounty included every deposit of documents worldwide and a sailing expedition to Pitcairn Island. This book details the cramped dark conditions on the ship and how Bligh bravely commanded it at Cape Horn, saving it and the crew. Yet he was unable to keep discipline because he didn’t punish enough, instead relying on his brutal tongue. Forced to remain in Tahiti for 23 weeks, Bligh struggled to retain order when Bounty sailed. Glynn Christian reveals how this affected Fletcher Christian mentally, explaining his out-of-character mutiny. Then Christian showed revolutionary social conscience, using democracy and uniforms on Bounty to maintain leadership, including through the little-known settlement of Fort George on Tubuai. After this, he and Bounty disappeared for 18 years. Bounty’s story becomes that of Pitcairn Island, of revolutionary black women who protected their children with the blood of their fathers and continued Fletcher’s ideals to become the first women in the world permanently to have the vote and guarantee education for girls. But where was Fletcher Christian?

Download or read book Fletcher Christian Bounty Mutineer His Life His Fate The Repercussions written by Glynn Christian and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fully colour illustrated in a bigger size (10"x7"), this completely revised edition features new images, new facts and new conclusions that give fresh perspectives to Fletcher's social status and background and explain how these impact on the psychology behind his special friendship with William Bligh and how this turned to tragic personal betrayal on April 28th, 1789. And how his ideas of social revolution led to Pitcairn Island's women being first in the world to have the vote.Follow the sweep of young Fletcher Christian's extraordinary life from Cumbria and the Isle of Man to India, Cape Horn, Tahiti and then to the world's most famous mutiny in HMAV BOUNTY, to his almost forgotten settlement of Fort George on Tubuai, his long South Pacific search for a hidden home and to oblivion on his Pitcairn Island hideout. Still Fletcher Christian's only biography, the book explains why there was never a mutiny of BOUNTY but was a revolt of one man against another, Christian against Bligh.As well as the shocking truth about conditions aboard BOUNTY and how Bligh behaved on a second breadfruit expedition, this book also reveals what Fletcher discovered about Tahitian women's brutal life of infanticide, facial reshaping, food restrictions and more. BOUNTY's women, including his wife Mauatua, were not kidnapped but eagerly escaped with Fletcher Christian and were later willing to entirely reshape their lifestyles, endure bloodshed and massacre on Pitcairn Island to protect their children and to follow Fletcher's legacy of social revolution, eventually becoming first women in the word to have the vote. But who really burned BOUNTY and why are there so many versions of Fletcher Christian's fate? Did he escape and secretly return to Cumberland? Fletcher Christian's descendant Glynn Christian investigates his ancestor's life, his mutiny and the repercussions more thoroughly than any other author has done and finally sails in the wake of Fletcher Christian to Pitcairn Island hoping to solve the mysteries of his fate. This reality-packed narrative proves fact is stranger and more thrilling than fiction, even after two centuries, and further enhances FRAGILE PARADISE, Glynn Christian's widely acclaimed and respected earlier telling of the life of Fletcher Christian BOUNTY Mutineer.

Download or read book Mrs Christian Bounty Mutineer Fletcher Stole the Ship written by Glynn Christian and published by . This book was released on 2011-07 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the heroic and bloody, untold story of Mauatua, Tahitian lover and wife of BOUNTY mutineer Fletcher Christian and of what she and 11 other women endured to survive on Pitcairn Island, the mutineers' secret refuge for almost twenty years. It is a story of Ma'ohi women succeeding where white men failed, women who then became first in the world to have the vote, in 1838, 90 years before the women of Britain. To secure and then protect two of womanhood's most precious rights, the right to bear children and the right of those children to a life of loving security, Mauatua had to endure and sometimes motivate unspeakable brutality. In response to the drunkenness, madness and physical cruelty of their European lovers, Mauatua and the other Ma'ohi women mutinied against their BOUNTY mutineer-kidnappers. They used Christian's revolutionary idea of voting to agree the only course to ensure the safe future of their children - an island with as few men as possible. But once they resorted to such extreme measures there were secrets that must never be told, confidences that must never be broken. A new history had to be written. When Pitcairn Island is rediscovered in 1808, a living reminder of Mauatua's past life on Tahiti challenges her certainties and everything she has done to protect the island's children. Thirty years later she led the Pitcairn community to ratifying two revolutionary concepts. Women had their right to vote written into law, ninety years before the UK. And education was to be compulsory for girls as well as boys. Eventually Mauatua is forced to disclose the truth about Pitcairn's two greatest mysteries. Who did plan the massacres? What did happen to Fletcher Christian? By telling her secrets, Mauatua/Mrs Christian subjects herself to the judgment and outrage of those she fought hardest to protect, her own children.

Download or read book Fragile Paradise written by Glynn Christian and published by Long Riders Guild Press. This book was released on 2005-05 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mutiny on Bounty on 28 April 1789 was the revolt of one man against another, Fletcher Christian against William Bligh. On that fateful day two friends became mortal enemies in a mighty clash of wills. In Fragile Paradise, the great-great-great-great-grandson of mutineer Fletcher Christian brings to life a fascinating and complex character that history has portrayed as both a hero and a villain. Glynn Christian shares the thrill of discovery as he follows the footsteps of his famous ancestor through family papers, contemporary accounts, and ultimately, on his own sailing expedition to Pitcairn Island where he finally solves the mystery of Fletcher Christian's death.

Download or read book Mutiny on the Bounty written by Peter FitzSimons and published by Hachette Australia. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave. Under the leadership of Fletcher Christian most of the crew mutinied soon after sailing from Tahiti, setting Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal crewmen adrift in a small open boat. In one of history's great feats of seamanship, Bligh navigated this tiny vessel for 3618 nautical miles to Timor. Fletcher Christian and the mutineers sailed back to Tahiti, where most remained and were later tried for mutiny. But Christian, along with eight fellow mutineers and some Tahitian men and women, sailed off into the unknown, eventually discovering the isolated Pitcairn Island - at the time not even marked on British maps - and settling there. This astonishing story is historical adventure at its very best, encompassing the mutiny, Bligh's monumental achievement in navigating to safety, and Fletcher Christian and the mutineers' own epic journey from the sensual paradise of Tahiti to the outpost of Pitcairn Island. The mutineers' descendants live on Pitcairn to this day, amid swirling stories and rumours of past sexual transgressions and present-day repercussions. Mutiny on the Bounty is a sprawling, dramatic tale of intrigue, bravery and sheer boldness, told with the accuracy of historical detail and total command of story that are Peter FitzSimons' trademarks.

Download or read book The Truth About the Mutiny on HMAV Bounty and the Fate of Fletcher Christian written by Glynn Christian and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Truth About the Mutiny on HMAV BOUNTY – and the Fate of Fletcher Christian brings this famed South Pacific saga into the 21st century. By combining unprecedented research into Fletcher Christian and his fate with deep knowledge of Bounty’s Polynesian women, Glynn Christian presents a fresh and comprehensive telling of a powerful maritime adventure that still captivates after 230 years. Of over 3000 books and major articles on the mutiny, or the five feature films starring such as Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson, none has told the true story as until 1982, no author knew the real Fletcher Christian, or could understand his relationship with William Bligh, his mentor-turned-nemesis. Glynn Christian’s extraordinary research into Bligh, Christian and Bounty included every deposit of documents worldwide and a sailing expedition to Pitcairn Island. This book details the cramped dark conditions on the ship and how Bligh bravely commanded it at Cape Horn, saving it and the crew. Yet he was unable to keep discipline because he didn’t punish enough, instead relying on his brutal tongue. Forced to remain in Tahiti for 23 weeks, Bligh struggled to retain order when Bounty sailed. Glynn Christian reveals how this affected Fletcher Christian mentally, explaining his out-of-character mutiny. Then Christian showed revolutionary social conscience, using democracy and uniforms on Bounty to maintain leadership, including through the little-known settlement of Fort George on Tubuai. After this, he and Bounty disappeared for 18 years. Bounty’s story becomes that of Pitcairn Island, of revolutionary black women who protected their children with the blood of their fathers and continued Fletcher’s ideals to become the first women in the world permanently to have the vote and guarantee education for girls. But where was Fletcher Christian?

Download or read book Pitcairn Island written by Trevor Lummis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pitcairn Island was a tiny uninhabited Eden when, in January 1790, Fletcher Christian and eight sailors, together with six Polynesian men, twelve Tahitian women and one baby, landed from HMS Bounty. There they burned their boat, thus eliminating any chance of a voluntary return to the known world. Their disappearance was to remain a mystery for twenty years. This book discusses the purposes of the Bounty’s voyage, the mutiny and its consequences, but goes further than any previous publications, to relate the gripping drama of subsequent events on Pitcairn - of the fifteen men who landed on the island, only one was alive when they were discovered, twelve had been brutally murdered by their companions and one had commited suicide. The role of the women in shaping events on the island, and their input into the unique identity of the community, is fully considered for the first time. Their support for the men as rival groups-Tahitians or Europeans-or their concern for individuals largely decided which men lived and died, while the women themselves commited some of the murders. Conflicts over property, race and gender brought this group close to total destruction. But out of the clashes of cultures and individual wills between European mutineers and Pacific islanders came, in a brief space of time, the new community of ’Pitcairn Islanders’: a thriving society based on progressive laws relating to sexual equality and the environment, with significant resonances for the reader some two centuries later.

Download or read book Mrs Christian Bounty Mutineer written by Glynn Christian and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-28 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet Mrs Christian, a real-life 18th century heroine of rebellion, women's rights and democracy.This is the bloodthirsty, true story of Mauatua Christian and the 11 other revolutionary Ma'ohi women of HMAV BOUNTY, the foremothers of Pitcairn Island. They succeeded where the mutineers failed and in 1838 became the first women in the world to have their full right to vote written into law, more than 80 years before just some British women over 30 were franchised......."Congratulations! It was fun and easy to read, and sheds tremendous light on the Pitcairn story. Sizzling sex scenes!": Distinguished Professor Dame Anne Salmond, South Pacific anthropologist and author"I read it with intense interest and fascination . . . not only a thoughtful but also a gripping and moving story, with wide implications. . . how much I admire your impressive achievement . . .": Rolf DuRietz, Bounty scholar......After a failed attempt to settle on Tubuai Island mutineer Fletcher Christian finally reaches uninhabited Pitcairn Island aboard BOUNTY in January 1790. Tahitian beauty Mauatua is with him, escaping the cruel, male-dominated life of Tahitian women. Together they hope to realise their joint dream of a better, more equal world for women and men.Stranded when the ship mysteriously burns, Pitcairn's Ma'ohi women endure and sometimes motivate unspeakable brutality to secure and then to protect two of womanhood's most precious rights, the right to bear children and the right of those children to a life of loving security.Once they resort to such extreme measures Mauatua knows these secrets must never be told, not even to their children. The women rewrite Pitcairn Island's violent history.Pitcairn Island is rediscovered in 1808. Only one mutineer is left alive and a living reminder of Mauatua's past life on Tahiti challenges her certainties about everything she has done to protect Pitcairn's children. After the community's brief and deadly return to Tahiti in 1831, where the Pitcairners are tragically abandoned by Church and Governments, she is forced to disclose the truth about Pitcairn's two greatest mysteries.Who did massacre Pitcairn's white and black men, and why? What did happen to Fletcher Christian?By telling her secrets Mauatua/Mrs Christian subjects herself to the judgment and outrage of those she fought hardest to protect, her own children

Download or read book Sketches of the History of Man written by Lord Henry Home Kames and published by . This book was released on 1779 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Far Land written by Brandon Presser and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of The Wager and Mutiny on the Bounty comes a thrilling true tale of power, obsession, and betrayal at the edge of the world. In 1808, an American merchant ship happened upon an uncharted island in the South Pacific and unwittingly solved the biggest nautical mystery of the era: the whereabouts of a band of fugitives who, after seizing their vessel, had disappeared into the night with their Tahitian companions. Pitcairn Island was the perfect hideaway from British authorities, but after nearly two decades of isolation its secret society had devolved into a tribalistic hellscape; a real-life Lord of the Flies, rife with depravity and deception. Seven generations later, the island’s diabolical past still looms over its 48 residents; descendants of the original mutineers, marooned like modern castaways. Only a rusty cargo ship connects Pitcairn with the rest of the world, just four times a year. In 2018, Brandon Presser rode the freighter to live among its present-day families; two clans bound by circumstance and secrets. While on the island, he pieced together Pitcairn’s full story: an operatic saga that holds all who have visited in its mortal clutch—even the author. Told through vivid historical and personal narrative, The Far Land goes beyond the infamous Mutiny on the Bounty, offering an unprecedented glimpse at life on the fringes of civilization, and how, perhaps, it’s not so different from our own.

Download or read book First Contacts in Polynesia the Samoan Case 1722 1848 written by Serge Tcherkezoff and published by ANU E Press. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the first encounters between Samoans and Europeans up to the arrival of the missionaries, using all available sources for the years 1722 to the 1830s, paying special attention to the first encounter on land with the Laperouse expedition. Many of the sources used are French, and some of difficult accessibility, and thus they have not previously been thoroughly examined by historians. Adding some Polynesian comparisons from beyond Samoa, and reconsidering the so-called 'Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate' about the fate of Captain Cook, 'First Contacts' in Polynesia advances a hypothesis about the contemporary interpretations made by the Polynesians of the nature of the Europeans, and about the actions that the Polynesians devised for this encounter: wrapping Europeans up in 'cloth' and presenting 'young girls' for 'sexual contact'. It also discusses how we can go back two centuries and attempt to reconstitute, even if only partially, the point of view of those who had to discover for themselves these Europeans whom they call 'Papalagi'. The book also contributes an additional dimension to the much-touted 'Mead-Freeman debate' which bears on the rules and values regulating adolescent sexuality in 'Samoan culture'. Scholars have long considered the pre-missionary times as a period in which freedom in sexuality for adolescents predominated. It appears now that this erroneous view emerged from a deep misinterpretation of Laperouse's and Dumont d'Urville's narratives.

Download or read book Paradise in Chains written by Diana Preston and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrated historian Diana Preston presents betrayals, escapes, and survival at sea in her account of the mutiny of the Bounty and the flight of convicts from the Australian penal colony. The story of the mutiny of the Bounty and William Bligh and his men's survival on the open ocean for 48 days and 3,618 miles has become the stuff of legend. But few realize that Bligh's escape across the seas was not the only open-boat journey in that era of British exploration and colonization. Indeed, 9 convicts from the Australian penal colony, led by Mary Bryant, also traveled 3,250 miles across the open ocean and some uncharted seas to land at the same port Bligh had reached only months before. In this meticulously researched dual narrative of survival, acclaimed historian Diana Preston provides the background and context to explain the thrilling open-boat voyages each party survived and the Pacific Island nations each encountered on their journey to safety. Through this deep-dive, readers come to understand the Pacific Islands as they were and as they were perceived, and how these seemingly utopian lands became a place where mutineers, convicts, and eventually the natives themselves, were chained.

Download or read book Bounty Trilogy written by Charles Nordhoff and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 1985-07-30 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wyeth edition of the three tales of the Bounty.

Download or read book Superstorm written by Kathryn Miles and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete moment-by-moment account of the largest Atlantic storm system ever recorded—a hurricane like no other The sky was lit by a full moon on October 29, 2012, but nobody on the eastern seaboard of the United States could see it. Everything had been consumed by cloud. The storm’s immensity caught the attention of scientists on the International Space Station. Even from there, it seemed almost limitless: 1.8 million square feet of tightly coiled bands so huge they filled the windows of the Station. It was the largest storm anyone had ever seen. Initially a tropical storm, Sandy had grown into a hybrid monster. It charged across open ocean, picking up strength with every step, baffling meteorologists and scientists, officials and emergency managers, even the traditional maritime wisdom of sailors and seamen: What exactly was this thing? By the time anyone decided, it was too late. And then the storm made landfall. Sandy was not just enormous, it was also unprecedented. As a result, the entire nation was left flat-footed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration couldn’t issue reliable warnings; the Coast Guard didn’t know what to do. In Superstorm, journalist Kathryn Miles takes readers inside the maelstrom, detailing the stories of dedicated professionals at the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service. The characters include a forecaster who risked his job to sound the alarm in New Jersey, the crew of the ill-fated tall ship Bounty, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Christie, and countless coastal residents whose homes—and lives—were torn apart and then left to wonder . . . When is the next superstorm coming?

Download or read book A Farewell to Alms written by Gregory Clark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-29 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, A Farewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.