Product Description: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo brought the first European explorers to the west coast of the United States more than four centuries ago. This biography traces Cabrillo's rise from a ragged childhood in the streets of Seville to a position of power and wealth as one of the richest landholders and most intrepid adventurers in the New World...read more

Product Description: In this lively and engaging new biography, Harry Kelsey shatters the familiar image of Sir Francis Drake. The Drake of legend was a pious, brave, and just seaman who initiated the move to make England a great naval power and whose acts of piracy against his country’s enemies earned him a knighthood for patriotism...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Although his cousin Sir Francis Drake is more famous, Sir John Hawkins (1532–1595) was a more successful seaman and played a pivotal role in the history of England and the emergence of the global slave trade. Born into a family of wealthy pirates, Hawkins became fascinated by tales of the riches of foreign lands...read more

Product Description: The Spanish Armada conjures up images of age-old rivalries, bravery, and treachery. However, the same Spanish monarch who sent the Armada to invade England in 1588 was, just a few years previously, the King of England and husband of Mary Tudor...read more