Nimitz 

This is an excellent study of a great naval and commercial commonwealth, occupying a small portion of Europe, but conquering a wide empire by the private enterprise of trading companies, girdling the world with its innumerable dependencies in Asia, America, Africa, Australia - exercising sovereignty in Brazil, Guinea, West Indies, New York, at the Cape of Good Hope, in Hindostan, Java, Sumatra, New Holland - must be looked upon with interest by Englishmen, as in a great measure the precursor in their own empire. First published in 1856, John Lothrop Motley spent 10 years researching this book in which he presents the political and religious history of the Netherlands. Motley was the only American author to be included in the Grolier Club's One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature.