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    Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty
    Unavailable
    Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty
    Unavailable
    Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty
    Audiobook36 hours

    Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty

    Written by Taylor Caldwell

    Narrated by Susie Berneis

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Joseph Armagh was 13 when he first saw America through a dirty porthole on the steerage deck of The Irish Queen. It was the early 1850's and he was a penniless orphan cast on a hostile shore to make a home for himself and his younger brother and infant sister. Some seventy years later, from his deathbed, Joseph Armagh last glimpsed his adopted land from the gleaming windows of a palatial estate. A multi-millionaire, one of the most powerful and feared men, Joseph Armagh had indeed found a home. Captains and the Kings is the story of the price that was paid for it in the consuming, single-minded determination of a man clawing his way to the top.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateOct 25, 2016
    ISBN9781520049380
    Unavailable
    Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty
    Author

    Taylor Caldwell

    Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) was one of the most prolific and widely read authors of the twentieth century. Born Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell in Manchester, England, she moved with her family to Buffalo, New York, in 1907. She started writing stories when she was eight years old and completed her first novel when she was twelve. Married at age eighteen, Caldwell worked as a stenographer and court reporter to help support her family and took college courses at night, earning a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Buffalo in 1931. She adopted the pen name Taylor Caldwell because legendary editor Maxwell Perkins thought her debut novel, Dynasty of Death (1938), would be better received if readers assumed it were written by a man. In a career that spanned five decades, Caldwell published forty novels, many of which were New York Times bestsellers. Her best-known works include the historical sagas The Sound of Thunder (1957), Testimony of Two Men (1968), Captains and the Kings (1972), and Ceremony of the Innocent (1976), and the spiritually themed novels The Listener (1960) and No One Hears But Him (1966). Dear and Glorious Physician (1958), a portrayal of the life of St. Luke, and Great Lion of God (1970), about the life of St. Paul, are among the bestselling religious novels of all time. Caldwell’s last novel, Answer as a Man (1981), hit the New York Times bestseller list before its official publication date. She died at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1985.  

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    Reviews for Captains and the Kings

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      This is a family saga reminiscent of the Kennedys. It is well written, lush of detail and story.
    • 4/5
      I picked this up when I ran out of reading material over Passover, and it was a great surprise! I adored it. I got thoroughly engrossed, and loved every moment of reading it. I could feel all the emotions in the book deeply, and I love the wonderfully fascinating historical background of it. I'd recommend Taylor Caldwell, and will be reading more of her books.
    • 4/5
      I am not sure how I feel about this book to be honest! I found the main character Joseph Armagh an extremely hard character to like. He had a hard start in life to be fair but it left him with a broken personality and an overwhelming desire to have money, but he wanted to have to control everyone's life as well, he schemed, bribed and betrayed everyone, to get what he wantedMoney was his god closely followed by power, which as the saying goes corrupts. There were some very scary concepts within the story, which if, are true, is more terrifying than anything else you could possibly think of.Joseph was a very unhappy, lonely man, cursed in more ways than one, to live a sad and futile existence, in the end totally alone.
    • 4/5
      After more than three decades of writing novels Taylor Caldwell demonstrated with Captains and the Kings that she could still tell a great story. In it young Joseph Armagh arrives in America in 1854, an impoverished orphan with a younger brother and sister to provide for. The narrative highlights his drive to pursue success and money, and with it the powerful allies and enemies he makes while practically alienating his family. He even gets involved with conspiracies in his drive for success.Like many of her earlier novels, at least those that I have read, she tells a memorable sprawling story with fascinating characters. Standing at the center of this large cast is Armagh himself. Joseph has an aura or perhaps charisma that he uses to make himself fascinating to others, but he is not an easy person to like. His character is filled with contradictions. As he engages in dangerous activities like slave trading, bootlegging, and shady business deals, he wants more of what the people engaged in these enterprises have to offer. His character is dark and he disdains the notion of any hope or optimism. Joseph orders the death or disgrace of most enemies with very little conscience. He marries for position rather than love, while turning to another woman for the sustenance his marriage lacks. He dominates his brother and sister and becomes furious when they begin lives of their own. But Joseph is not a one-dimensional character. He is a very multi-faceted man with a bit of humanity that shows every once in awhile. He has a very romantic and chivalrous side. At first dismissive of his children, he slowly begins to accept them and take pride in them up to the point where he has ambitions that include the presidency for his eldest son (which would make him the first Catholic President of the United States about 50 years before John F. Kennedy). One of the most touching scenes that shows Joseph’s better character is where he shows real regret in disgracing a senator, whom he realizes is a truly good man. Another theme is the idea that there is a secret group controlling the real power behind the government. Joseph comes into a world of The Committee of Foreign Relations; shadowy men who make decision that affect the world around them. Joseph and later his son, Rory, become involved in some chilling meetings where these men discuss upcoming world wars, stock market panics and crashes, and Communist uprisings in a nonchalant matter as though they were items on a shopping list. This sort of conspiracy theory motif does make for fascinating reading and makes one wonder. Joseph despite all of his money, and cynicism is at heart a naive character and doesn't truly realize how dangerous they can be until they turn on him and his son. The story is well told and the family with all of its warts and issues is interesting to the end.
    • 2/5
      Believe it or not, I read this book twice. The first time I read it was in the late seventies and now. The reason for me reading it the first time was because I watched and loved the mini series of this novel.

      You know how they say "the book is better than the movie"? Well, not in this case. After I read the novel the first time, after I saw the series, I felt that the characters were much better flashed out in the series than in the book.

      I'm afraid my observations stayed the same. If you really want to find out more of what this story is all about, get the mini series.

      Melanie for b2b

      Complimentary copy provided by the publisher