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Rovner’s first book, In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel, focuses on authors who promoted the creation of autonomous Jewish homelands beyond the borders of the biblical land of Israel. Rovner’s book received praise in numerous periodicals, including in the pages of the Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Review of Books, and The Times Literary Supplement. A film adaptation is currently in development by Israeli director Ari Folman. Rovner’s own short documentary, No Land Without Heaven: Isaac Nachman Steinberg & the Freeland League, was screened in Israel, New York City, and Paris.
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His latest book, The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Scandal in Victorian Africa, is based on newly uncovered archival materials sourced from across the globe. Rovner’s book centers on 19th-century Anglo-Jewish merchant-adventurer Nathaniel Isaacs, who penned the first account of the Zulu people and their famed king, Shaka. Isaacs became a Zulu chieftain under Shaka and a power-broker within the Zulu Kingdom. After his return to England, he published a sensational two-volume travelogue of pre-colonial South Africa (1836). Isaacs later relocated to Sierra Leone where he became a wealthy importer-exporter. He then leveraged his contact with indigenous leaders to become the sole ruler of a private island kingdom that threatened British colonial interests and challenged Her Majesty’s efforts to interdict the slave trade.
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Rovner has worked in an Atlantic City hotel casino, milked cows on a kibbutz, taught at a video game college, traveled to archives across the world, lectured internationally, survived an attack by a rabid dog in Surinam, and escaped from detention on a remote Guinean island. He currently holds the title of North America’s Strongest Director of Judaic Studies (pound-for-pound). Adam Rovner is a dual American-Israeli national who lives in Denver, Colorado.