-- Highlights a true tale of politics, adventure, and ruthless ambition-- Includes extensive illustrations, maps, diagrams, and printsAtlantic Kingdom pays tribute to the Americans who challenged Cunard, the English shipping company that held a monopoly on North Atlantic trade routes in the nineteenth century. In an era when large-scale technology and industrialization promised a new standard of living, competition for control over maritime trade was fierce. Robert Fulton, Cornelius Vanderbilt, P. T. Barnum, Edward Knight Collins, Enoch Train, and Samuel Samuels left behind them a wreckage of human lives, lost ships, and squandered fortunes in their failed bids for supremacy of the seas. Their monumental efforts, however, extended the limits of technology, expanded global trade exponentially, and carried the Industrial Revolution to its fulfillment.