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"In an elegantly written tour de force of history and archaeology, Noel Hume tells a dark tale of two cities.... Enlivened by period engravings, paintings, maps, photographs of sites and artifacts, this saga of Anglo-Native American relations shattered by English arrogance and disdain is peopled with astonishing figures". -- Publishers Weekly

"The ... book is written in a breezy and often humorous style, yet the research has been thorough and the thinking rigorous". -- Social History

Ivor Noel Hume is one of the world's most elegant and engaging writers on archaeology. His gift for making the subject accessible to the general reader has made his previous books -- among them Martin's Hundred and Here Lies Virginia -- perennial favorites. In The Virginia Adventure, Noel Hume turns his attention to the two earliest English settlements in Virginia, Roanoke and James Towne, with fascinating results.

Combining information gathered through excavations of the sites with contemporary accounts from journals, letters, and official records of the period, the author illuminates the exploits of Sir Walter Ralegh, Captain John Smith, and Powhatan; the life and death of Pocahontas; and the disappearance of the Roanoke colony. He describes in detail a recent excavation at the Roanoke worksite of a metallurgist whose mineral findings first convinced English merchants that America was a worthy risk.

With characteristic clarity and wit, Ivor Noel Hume offers us an indispensible history of England's first perilous ventures into the New World. The Virginia Adventure confirmshis place as one of the great interpreters of our colonial past.