LOVE AND HATE IN JAMESTOWN

The Survival Story of America's Beginning

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

English America came close to disappearing in its very first years. Love and Hate in Jamestown tells the astonishing story and brings the Jamestown colony fully and accurately to life. Critics have hailed Love and Hate in Jamestown as history at its best, combining readable narrative and authoritative research.

Drawing on extensive original documents, David A. Price paints intimate portraits of the major figures and their conflicts: from the formidable monarch Chief Powhatan, to the resourceful but unpopular leader John Smith, to the spirited Pocahontas. Love and Hate in Jamestown gives a rare balanced view of relations between the English and the natives and debunks popular myths about the colony.

WHERE TO BUY

Print: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

Ebook: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Audio: Apple Books/iTunes | Audible | Google Play

REVIEWS

"Solid and engaging.... Price focuses on the human story of Jamestown, nearly mythic in its resonances." — The New York Times

"Splendidly realized.... Price has given the Jamestown story a contemporary freshness." — The Boston Globe

"Price clears away the misconceptions and sugar-coated half truths to reveal the true story of the Virginia Colony.... Full of drama, tragedy, and heartbreak." — Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Not only intellectually palatable, but also a juicy feast of compelling storytelling.... Love and Hate in Jamestown deserves an honored spot in any history buff's library." — Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Greed, arrogance, intrigue, valor, stupidity, suspense, and cataclysmic tragedy... Price interweaves all these elements with a graceful, reportorial style that never forgets the humanity of the individuals involved." — Orlando Sentinel

"A stylishly written, authoritative retelling of the opening of the first permanent English settlement in the New World." — Harvard Magazine

"The most historically correct and stylistically elegant rendering of John Smith and Pocahontas that I have ever read." — Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers

"This sparkling book retells a beloved tale in modern terms. Journalist Price's subtitle suggests that the book might be only about John Smith and Pocahontas — who 'crossed into one another's cultures more than any other Englishman or native woman had done' — as well as about Pocahontas's eventual husband, John Rolfe. Fortunately, the book ranges more widely than that. Price relates the entire riveting story of the founding of Virginia. Smith is of course at the center of the tale, because rarely did a colonial leader so bountifully combine experience, insight, vision, strength of character and leadership skills to overcome extraordinary odds. But no one will come away from this work without heightened admiration also for the natives, especially Chief Powhatan, and greater knowledge of the introduction of a third people, the African slaves, into the Chesapeake.... A splendid work of serious narrative history." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Jamestown in Virginia ... determined not to founder and fail as had the Roanoke settlement of the 1580s. They made it, but only just; the first 40 years were a woeful chronicle of competent leaders demoted and incompetent promoted by shareholders back in England, of aristo sloth and inter-settler strife, besides the mutual treacheries and butcheries of Native American-colonial confrontations. Price is scrupulous about both sides, and his John Smith and Pocahontas portraits unromanticised." — The Guardian

FOR SCHOOLS

“We recently finished reading the book Love and Hate in Jamestown by David A. Price. . . . I can say with confidence that my students know a great deal about Jamestown from both the perspective of the English and Indians. They thoroughly enjoyed Price’s book, which is reflected in the thoughtfulness and level of detail on the tests. My kids are actually excited about going to Jamestown, even the ones who have been there before. No doubt part of it, of course, can be explained by a day off from classes, but a number of them have said to me that they are interested in walking the ground on which so much of the story is centered. I’ve heard that a few of the students plan to wear costumes of their favorite characters. How cool is that? . . .

“I don’t have any answers for the worry mongers out there who constantly bitch and complain about how little students know about American history. All I can say is that if you make history interesting and relevant they will respond. Not only will they respond, but you may even make a few life-long history readers out of them.” — Kevin M. Levin, educator and historian

A "Best Adult Book for High School Students" — School Library Journal