The tumultuous period between 1630 and 1660 witnessed the birth of English America and, in the mother country, a vicious civil war that rent the very fabric of English life. Bringing the era into perspective, Adrian Tinniswood traces the story of the Rainborowes: Patriarch William was an adventurous shipmaster andhis daughters married into the upper echelons of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, while his sons joined the rebellion against King Charles I. In mapping these individual lives, Tinniswood explores how America and Britain began to forge separate identities.