An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight AmericaKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 16.09.2014 - 448 Seiten Written from a strikingly fresh perspective, this new account of the Boston Tea Party and the origins of the American Revolution shows how a lethal blend of politics, personalities, and economics led to a war that few people welcomed but nobody could prevent.
At the heart of the book lies the Boston Tea Party, an event that arose from fundamental flaws in the way the British managed their affairs. By the early 1770s, Great Britain had become a nation addicted to financial speculation, led by a political elite beset by internal rivalry and increasingly baffled by a changing world. When the East India Company came close to collapse, it patched together a rescue plan whose disastrous side effect was the destruction of the tea.
Drawing on careful study of primary sources from Britain and the United States, An Empire on the Edge sheds new light on the Tea Party’s origins and on the roles of such familiar characters as Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Hutchinson. The book shows how the king’s chief minister, Lord North, found himself driven down the road to bloodshed. At his side was Lord Dartmouth, the colonial secretary, an evangelical Christian renowned for his benevolence. In a story filled with painful ironies, perhaps the saddest was this: that Dartmouth, a man who loved peace, had to write the dispatch that sent the British army out to fight. |
Inhalt
3 | |
13 | |
THE TIGERs MoUTH | 31 |
This DARK AFFAIR THE GAspée INCIDENT | 50 |
THE EAST INDIA CRIsis | 127 |
THE CABINET IN WINTER | 239 |
BosTON MUST BE DESTROYED | 256 |
THE Noble DEAD | 366 |
The Meaning of Treason | 373 |
Sources and Further Reading | 379 |
Acknowledgments | 413 |