description: A great surging novel about the amassing of a colossal fortune, the political power that comes with it, the operation of a curse laid on an Irish-American dynasty and the ruthless driving man who founded it. Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh was thirteen years old 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 immigrant, an orphan cast on a hostile shore to make a home for himself, 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 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; in the bitter-sweet bliss of the love of a beautiful woman; in the almost too-late enjoyment of extraordinary children; and in the curse which used the hand of fate to strike in the very face of success itself. Once again, Taylor Caldwell has looked into America's roistering past as a setting for a drama of the consequences of savage ambition - and its meaning then and now.
language: English
title: Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty
titlecomplete: Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty
characters: Kevin Armagh, Miss Emmy, Sean Armagh, Katherine Hennessey, Ed Healey, Claudia, Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh, Harry Zieff, Mary Armag, Bernadette Hennessey Armagh, Charles Desmond, Rory Armagh, Honora Houlihan, Martinique, Elizabeth Healey Hennessey, Marjorie Chisholm, Courtney Wickersham, Tom Hennessey
genres: Historical Romance, Fiction, Classics, Historical, Romance, Novels, Drama, Literature, American, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 19107
publisher: Fawcett Publications