Owen Matthews was born in London and spent part of his childhood in America. He studied Modern History at Oxford University before beginning his career as a journalist in Bosnia. In 1995 he accepted a job at The Moscow Times, a daily English-language newspaper. He also freelanced for a number of publications including The Times, the Spectator and the Independent. In 1997, he became a correspondent at Newsweek magazine in Moscow where he covered the second Chechen war, as well as politics and society. Owen was also one of the first journalists to witness the start of the US bombing in the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan, 2001, and went on to cover the invasion of Iraq, 2003. His first book on Russian history, Stalin's Children, was published to great critical acclaim in 2008. Owen is currently Newsweek magazine's bureau chief in Moscow, where he lives with his wife and two children.
"Rezanov is the central character in Owen Matthews's enthralling account of Russia's great misfire: its attempt to colonise America. Many know that Russia sold Alaska to America, rather cheaply in 1867, fearing that it had become indefensible. But few know how it had become Russian in the first place . . . Glorious Misadventures is in part this extraordinary man's biography . . . His voyage to the Pacific, with shipmates even more mercurial, reads like an implausibly lively historical novel . . . The exotic personalities and adventures come against a backdrop of geopolitical tussles between France, Spain, Russia and Britain. Mr Matthews depicts them neatly, and paints enjoyable cameos . . . The book bursts with telling details, many of them gruesome . . . [An] exemplary account of adventures that could have changed the world." --Economist "A swashbuckling Tsarist Russian in America ... Told by Matthews, the story loses none of its strangeness and its swashbuckling verve, reading at times like a cross between Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Gogol's the Government Inspector." --Financial Times "Deftly chronicle[d]. So the settlements are cold, the men are drunk, the trade is slow, but Matthews treats it all with an amused dryness that's as quintessentially British as good gin. The many digressions are in the service of a story that would make a fine Hollywood film." --Newsweek "Did you know that early in the 19th Century--as Napoleon was on the march--Russia's Tsar Alexander I sent a vainglorious, hotheaded seafaring courtier named Rezanov to conquer California for the Russian empire? Obviously, Rezanov's mission didn't succeed (though he made a killing in "soft gold" in Sitka and Alaska en route--harvesting thousands of seal skins, which the Chinese bought at premium prices). In Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of a Russian America, Owen Matthews thrillingly relates this swashbuckling, Vernean, and entirely true chapter of forgotten history." --Liesl Schillinger, Daily Beast "Matthews is wonderful at pacing the history of Russia's various eastward fur-trapping journeys and voyages; whether the cast of energetic, clever and violent fur traders are crossing Siberia by sleigh or the Atlantic and Pacific by ship, he never rushes, he never lags." --San Francisco Chronicle "Drawing on diaries and other sources, Mr. Matthews weaves a tale of courage and chicanery, avarice and incompetence . . . [A] well-researched glimpse into an underappreciated era in New World history." --Wall Street Journal "Matthews opens a new window into the first settlements of America's Pacific coast, the men who led it and the reasons for its failure." --Pittsburgh Post Gazette "Rezanov's bizarre schemes and improbable adventures make interesting reading, as does Matthews' account of the history of early settlements along North America's West Coast, especially Russia's Alaskan colonies." --Seattle Times "Fascinating . . . Rezanov [is] a kind of Russian Fitzcarraldo, an imperial visionary in hot pursuit of a mad dream." --William Grimes, New York Times "A fascinating book of Russian involvement in US settlement and history of our far west coast." --San Francisco Book Review "Matthews's humor, eye for detail, and voluminous knowledge of the historical context make this book a penetrating and enjoyable account of the exploration age and Russian society, from the imperial court to the wild frontier garrisons." --Publishers Weekly, starred review "Fascinating . . . This epic historical account illuminates the promise and failings of a lost empire through the ambition of a single man." --Booklist "Matthews opens a new window into the first settlements of America's Pacific coast, the men who led it and the reasons for its failure." --Kirkus Reviews
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