The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company Paperback by Charles Royster

Product Details

• Publisher: Vintage (2000-12-05)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 640 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780679753056
• Item Weight: 575.5 grams
• Dimensions: 20.17 x 13.21 x 3.15 cm

From historian Charles Royster--winner of the Francis Parkman, Bancroft, and Lincoln prizes--comes the history of one of eighteenth-century America's most fantastic land speculation deals: William Byrd's scheme to develop 900 square miles of swamp on the Virginia-North Carolina border and create fabulous wealth for himself and other shareholders, including George Washington.

Royster scrupulously follows the paper trail through the byways of transatlantic deal-cutting, providing a rare view of early American economic culture.  Elegantly written and impressively researched, The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company is an eye-opening account of greed, folly, and venture capitalism in the revolutionary era.

About the Author

CHARLES ROYSTER is Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University. His previous books include A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, and The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans, which won a Bancroft Prize and the Lincoln Prize.