Redshirts of Destiny: A Novel of the Filibusters

New York: Empire Books. Near Fine in Good+ dj. (c.1935). First Edition (?). Hardcover. [nice tight clean copy with minor shelfwear only, vintage price sticker (from San Francisco department store The White House) at upper corner of rear pastedown; the jacket has a bit of soiling to the rear panel and along the bottom and right edges of the front panel, small tears at several upper corners, some very shallow chipping at the bottom edge of the rear panel]. "A rapid fire story of action and romance in which a handful of dare-devil Americans pit themselves against the native forces for supremacy in Nicaragua's most exciting revolution." These "Redshirts," of course, were no heroes: they were mercenaries in the service of the notorious William Walker, who spent a lot of time (and a lot of his investors' money) in the mid-19th century, trying to privately colonize various parts of Latin America for the express purpose of adding more slave states to the United States -- an activity known as filibustering. (The book's protagonist becomes Walker's trusted aide in the course of the narrative.) This is, of course, the boy's-pulp-adventurish version of Walker's exploits; for a radically different perspective, see Alex Cox's 1987 film WALKER. Or just read, you know, actual history. .