"In 1897, gold has been discovered in the Yukon. New York is under the sway of Hearst and Pulitzer. And in a few months, an American battleship will explode in a Cuban harbor, plunging the U.S. into war. This is the story of that extraordinary moment: the turn of the twentieth century, as seen by one of our greatest storytellers of all time...'A Moment in the Sun' takes the whole era in its sights--from the white-racist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina to the bloody dawn of U.S. interventionism overseas. Beginning with Hod Brackenridge searching for his fortune in the North, and hurtling forward across five years and half a dozen countries...this is a story as big as its subject: history rediscovered through the lives of the people who made it happen."--P. [4] of cover