Filled with unforgettable characters and martime adventure, the incredible story of a forgotten war that shaped the fate of the United States-and the entire Western Hemisphere.
In the early 18th century, the British and Spanish Empires were fighting for economic supremacy in the Americas. Tensions between the two powers were high, and wars blossomed like violent flowers for nearly a hundred years, from the War of Spanish Succession (sometimes known as Queen Anne's War in the Americas), culminating in the War of Jenkins' Ear.

This war would lay the ground work for the French and Indian War and, eventually, the War of the American Revolution. The War of Jenkins' Ear was a world war in the truest sense, engaging the major European powers on battlefields ranging from Europe to the Americas to the Asian subcontinent.

Yet the conflict that would eventually become known as the War of Jenkins' Ear-a moniker coined by the 19th century historian Robert...