JOSEPH A. KING is the author of seven books and a contributor to Patterns of Migration, in the award-winning “The Irish World Wide” series, for the University of Leicester Press. As the author of the highly-praised Winter of Entrapment: A New Look at the Donner Party (1992), he served as a consultant and appeared in two films for TV (The American Experience and The Real West series) shown in the United States and abroad in 1992 and 1994 about the tragic overland wagon train. With Peter Berresford Ellis, he co-authored for The Irish Sword (1992) a study of the Fenian invasion of Canada.