Captains and the Kings is a 1972 historical novel by Taylor Caldwell chronicling the rise to wealth and power of an Irish immigrant, Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh, who emigrates as a penniless teenager to the United States, along with his younger brother and baby sister, only for their parents to die shortly afterwards.

The saga nears its end when Armagh succeeds in making his eldest son, Rory (modeled after John Fitzgerald Kennedy), a senator.

Young Joseph Armagh, whose parents recently died after giving birth to his sister, is left to venture towards Boston with his younger brother and the baby.

As his siblings mature into adulthood, they choose different paths in life, with his brother becoming an Irish singer and his sister taking monastic vows.

The book was adapted into an eight-part television miniseries, also called Captains and the Kings, by NBC in the 1976 broadcast season as part of its Best Sellers series.