The Rainborowes bridges two generations and two worlds as it carries the reader back and forth across the Atlantic, weaving together the lives of different members of the Rainborowe clan as they struggle to forge a better life for themselves and a better future for humankind in the New World and in the Old, as colonists, entrepreneurs and idealists. The narrative unfolds between 1630 and 1660 -- a time which shattered England and shaped America -- and follows the fortunes of William Rainborowe, a prominent merchant-mariner and shipmaster, and his equally formidable sons and daughters. The reader comes to understand not only the lives and loves of a single family, but the dreams of an entire culture -- confused and chaotic, catching hold of hope and losing its grip on old certainties. The Rainborowes explains America and mourns England#146;s failed revolution. It spans oceans and ideologies and encompasses personal tragedies and triumphs, the death of kings and the birth of nations. Using rare printed material from the period and unpublished manuscripts from collections in Britain and America The Rainborowes recreates, more vividly than ever before, day-to-day life on both sides of the Atlantic during one of the most tumultuous periods in Western history. In their efforts to build a paradise on earth, the Rainborowes and their friends encounter pirates and witches, prophets and princes, Moslem militants and Mohican Indians. They build new societies.

They are ordinary men and women, and they do an extraordinary thing. They change the world.