The breathtaking island of Makassang, in the Java Sea, is the setting for this tremendous historical novel. Piracy, plundering and barbarism are rife. The ageing Rajah, threatened by rebellion, enlists the help of Richard Marriott - baronet's son-turned-buccaneer, but Richard falls for the Rajah's daughter.

When charismatic adventurer James Brooke travels to Borneo on the schooner Royalist, he plans to make a great fortune establishing trade between the natives and the British Empire. But even in his flights of fancy, he'd never imagined that he would end up rajah of his own country. The story is told by John Williamson, a young sailor who has travelled with Brooke since he set out from England. They find themselves mixed up in Borneo's civil war, political divisions, and intrigue, being forced further and further away from their dreams and ideals and struggling to establish the British presence on the island - as, meanwhile, love grows between them ... Based on the true story of James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak, this tale of adventure and love is set against the background of a jungle world of extraordinary beauty and savagery.

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The White Rajah documents a fascinating time in Sarawak made possible by high integrity of three generations of Brooke men.

Sir James Brooke was an extraordinary 'eminent' Victorian, whose life was the stuff of legend.His curious career began in 1841 when he was caught up in a war in Brunei which had started because a party of local Dayaks had refused to furl their umbrellas in the presence of the Sultan. Brooke was an opportunist who, with the Sultan's backing, made war on the Dayaks tribespeople and eventually found himself ruling over Sarawak - a kingdom the size of England - as a result. How he achieved it is a romantic, sometimes horrifying story. Brooke is someone that George Macdonald Fraser would scarcely dare to invent. Errol Flynn wanted to play him in a movie, seventy years after his death and his dynasty is remembered throughout South-East Asia.

The breathtaking island of Makassang, in the Java Sea, is the setting for this tremendous historical novel. Piracy, plundering and barbarism are rife. The ageing Rajah, threatened by rebellion, enlists the help of Richard Marriott - baronet's son-turned-buccaneer, but Richard falls for the Rajah's daughter.

Power, passion, politics. The sleepy state of Sarawak is stirred up as never before by the arrival of Gerald McBryan. An unscrupulous adventurer, he soon has the Rajah and Ranee eating out of his hand. The eminence grise of Rajah Vyner, he forces through decisions that have shaped what Sarawak is today. Twilight of the White Rajahs is set in the Sarawak of the interwar and immediate postwar period. Vyner, like Henry VII of England, has inherited a tightly run ship of state. But his own playboy nature, the antics of his wife and most important his failure to produce a male heir, threaten the dynasty into which he was born. Outside forces also increase the pressure on his regime. War clouds in the Pacific and the South China Sea. The desire for self-determination. The bullying of the British Colonial Office. The turbulent wave of anti-cession created by the Rajah Muda, Peter Brooke. A war of hot tempers, cunning and deviousness ensued; a war that everyone was determined to win at all costs. Twilight of the White Rajahs recounts in fascinating detail the lives of the chief actors during this period. Twilight of the White Rajahs continues the saga of Golden Dreams of Borneo as the tough pioneering spirit of the 19th century gives way to the more sophisticated politics of the 20th.

The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise The Viking Age -- from 750 to 1050 -- saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture. Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed. From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.