Candice Millard – författare

'Thrilling, tremendously enjoyable' The New York Times'A nail-biting escape story' Financial TimesAt the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill already believed he was destined for greatness. This is the incredible story of how one incredible year in Churchill's life - an adventure involving war in South Africa, imprisonment, endurance and escape - would be the making of one of the most extraordinary men in history. 'Few can match the originality and narrative power of Candice Millard's elegantly written and surprisingly revealing account of the young Churchill's exploits' Saul David, Daily Telegraph'A thrilling account ... This book is an awesome nail-biter and top-notch character study rolled into one' Jennifer Senior, The New York Times, Books of the YearGripping ... thrilling ... Millard tells it with gusto ... casts an interestingly oblique light on Churchill's personality, and on a traumatic war' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Observer, Books of the Year'Completely engrossing' Andrew Roberts

'Completely engrossing' Andrew RobertsFrom The New York Times bestselling author Candice Millard, this is the gripping true story of one dramatic - and emblematic - year in the early life of Winston ChurchillAt the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill believed that to achieve his ambition of becoming Prime Minister he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Although he had put himself in real danger in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba, glory and fame had eluded him.Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899 to write about the brutal colonial war against the Boers. Just two weeks later, he was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape - but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory alone. The story of his escape is extraordinary enough, but then Churchill enlisted, returned to South Africa, fought in several battles and ultimately liberated the men with whom he had been imprisoned.Churchill would later remark that this period, 'could I have seen my future, was to lay the foundations of my later life'. Candice Millard tells a magnificent story of bravery, savagery and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters - including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener and Gandhi - with whom he would later share the world stage, and gives us an unexpected perspective on one of the iconic figures in our history.

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut.From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic, this thrilling biographical account of the life and legacy of Wintson Churchill is a "nail-biter and top-notch character study rolled into one" (The New York Times). At the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England. He arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels and jumpstart his political career. But just two weeks later, Churchill was taken prisoner.  Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape—traversing hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him.Bestselling author Candice Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters—including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi—with whom Churchill would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an extraordinary adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect twentieth century history.Look for Candice Millard’s latest book, River of the Gods.

In 1912, shortly after losing his bid to spend a third term as American President to Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt with his son Kermit, a Brazilian guide and a band of camaradas set off deep into the Amazon jungle and a very uncertain fate. Although Roosevelt did eventually return from THE RIVER OF DOUBT, he and his companions faced treacherous cataracts as well as the dangerous indigenous population of the Amazon. He became severely ill on the journey, nearly dying in the jungle from a blood infection and malaria. A mere five years later Roosevelt did die of related issues. One extraordinary factor is the resistance and disbelief the well-respected Roosevelt faced upon what should have been a triumphant return. The region was considered so dangerous that most reputable exploration societies considered Roosevelt's discoveries improbable. The Amazon emerges as a world unconstrained by the rules of civilisation, a place where an ex-president becomes just another creature struggling to survive.

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.

''This complex, compelling tale is told with simplicity and grace'' - The TimesA story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.For millennia the location of the Nile River''s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the mid-19th century, Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for Britain. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, Burton''s opposite in temperament and beliefs.From the start the two men clashed. They would endure tremendous hardship, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, the two became sworn enemies.Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan''s army, and eventually travelled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without Bombay and men like him, who led, carried, and protected the expedition, neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived.

‘This complex, compelling tale is told with simplicity and grace' - The TimesA story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.For millennia the location of the Nile River's headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the mid-19th century, Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for Britain. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, Burton’s opposite in temperament and beliefs.From the start the two men clashed. They would endure tremendous hardship, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, the two became sworn enemies.Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan’s army, and eventually travelled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without Bombay and men like him, who led, carried, and protected the expedition, neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived.

Antike Kulturen, Heldenmut und ein unverzeihlicher Verrat: Die größte Abenteuergeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts - Der »New York Times«-Bestseller in wunderschöner AusstattungWährend die europäischen Großmächte zahllose Entdecker entsenden, um die unbekannten Winkel der Welt zu erforschen, entflammt auf dem Kontinent eine rauschhafte Faszination für das Alte Ägypten. Um das jahrtausendealte Geheimnis um den Ursprung des Nils zu lüften, begeben sich der exzentrische Richard Burton, ein Sprachgenie und dekorierter Soldat, und der fromme Aristokrat und passionierte Jäger John Speke im Auftrag der englischen Krone auf eine gefährliche Mission. Als wahrer Held ihres Abenteuers entpuppt sich jedoch der befreite Sklave Sidi Bombay, dessen Mut und Einfallsreichtum von der imperialen Geschichtsschreibung vergessen wurden.Vor dem Hintergrund der europäischen Ausbeutung des afrikanischen Kontinents erzählt Candice Millard in »Der Fluss der Götter« mitreißend und fundiert von einer der wichtigsten Expeditionen der Geschichte. Mit Goldveredelung, gestaltetem Vorsatzpapier und Bildteil.»Millard ist eine herausragende, historisch versierte Erzählerin, die die Gabe besitzt, längst vergessenen Geschichten neues Leben einzuhauchen.« Bookreporter»Millards Recherche und ihre sehr lesbare Erzählweise sind bewundernswert.« Wall Street Journal»New York Times«-Bestseller und bestes Buch des Jahres 2022 u.a. bei »Washington Post«, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, »NPR« und »Goodreads«