An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America

by Nick Bunker Narrated by Robert Ian Mackenzie

Overview

The story of the American Revolution told from the unique perspective of British Parliament and the streets of London, rather than that of the Colonies. Here, Nick Bunker explores and illuminates the dramatic chain of events that led to the outbreak of the war-revealing a tale of muddle, mistakes, and misunderstandings by men in London that led to the Boston tea party and then to the decision to send redcoats into action against the minutemen. Charting the three years prior to the war during which the British regime in America was already collapsing, Bunker shows how a lethal combination of politics and personalities led to a war that should never have been fought. Revisiting the tea party from the point of view of British economics and drawing upon new and unpublished sources from Britain and the U.S., he argues that thanks to the colonialists' misunderstandings about the strength of British power, and London's inability to take American cries for freedom seriously, both were pushed beyond the point of compromise. The outcome? A war that few welcomed but all were powerless to stop.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

07/07/2014
Covering the three years leading up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775, journalist Bunker (Making Haste from Babylon) wisely jettisons a hero/villain dichotomy in favor of a nuanced global analysis of Britain’s failure to hold onto its American colonies. Bunker opens his riveting narrative with an account of the East India Company’s maneuvers to secure tea for the thirsty British market. In 1771, the company miscalculated demand and ended up with a crippling amount of unsold stock that, with the help of the British government, it intended to unload on the 13 colonies. By 1772, the colonists, accustomed to running their own economies and local governments, pushed back at what they viewed as unwarranted intrusions into their affairs. This serious difference of opinion over the nature of the colonial relationship became crystal clear when a group of American raiders attacked a British customs schooner, the Gaspée, off the coast of Rhode Island. Relations with Britain deteriorated, culminating with the dumping of the East India Company’s tea in the Boston harbor. This was a major property crime and another direct challenge to Parliament’s authority. With a sharp eye for economic realities, Bunker persuasively demonstrates why the American Revolution had to happen. Illus. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in History
Winner of the 2015 George Washington Prize
Winner of the 2015 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award

“[A] bracing gallop through the three years leading up to the ‘shot heard round the world.’. . . A broad and telling portrait.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Absorbing and detailed. . . . Bunker’s narrative is human and even-handed; and from the Boston harbourside to the salons of London, a complex and epic tale is told with colour and enthusiasm.” —The Sunday Telegraph (London)

“Bunker’s tightly argued and deeply researched book shows how a broader perspective can shed new light on even the most familiar events.” —Foreign Affairs
 
“A joy. . . . An exciting backstage look at the events that caused the American Revolution. . . . [and] an excellent analysis of the situation in the American colonies and Great Britain in the 18th century.” —New York Journal of Books
 
“Nearly two and a half centuries after the fact, it would seem all but impossible to shed fresh light and insight into the origins of the American Revolution. And yet, this is precisely what journalist-turned-financial analyst-turned-historian Nick Bunker has accomplished in a majestic new study of the events leading up to shots being fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775.”
 —The Manchester Journal
 
“Highly recommended.”
—Andrew Lambert, BBC History Magazine
 
“A nuanced global analysis of Britain’s failure to hold onto its American colonies. . . . riveting. . . . With a sharp eye for economic realities, Bunker persuasively demonstrates why the American Revolution had to happen.”
—Publishers Weekly (boxed review)

“An eye-opening study of the British view of the American Revolution and why they were crazy to fight it. . . . the failure of British leadership to recognize the warning signs will astonish readers who thought the Revolution was just about tea. A scholarly yet page-turning, superbly written history.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
 
“[An] enthralling examination of the three years leading up to the American Revolution. . . . Bunker sets the story in its global context. However, he is also good at zeroing in on the local and unfamiliar.”
—The Times (London)
 
“Utterly absorbing and full of colour, we learn afresh what a mess Britain made of leaving America and, crucially and importantly, how that mess shaped the American psyche.”
—Justin Webb, presenter, BBC Today Programme 

“Bunker’s is a fascinating historical account, with implications that go beyond its subject matter into the question of how empire-building works—or doesn’t.”
—The Columbus Dispatch

“Nick Bunker dazzles the reader with a deeply researched and clear-eyed accounting of the dissolution of the mighty—but woefully overextended—British Empire, and in particular its 13 colonies in North America. Bunker’s mellifluous prose fairly jumps off the page, drawing the reader deeper and deeper into this intricate and fascinating tale.”
—William D. Cohan
 

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2014-06-23
Bunker (Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History, 2010) delivers an eye-opening study of the British view of the American Revolution and why they were crazy to fight it.England never had a solid plan for administering the American colonies, situated on a continent they couldn’t understand and could never hope to rule. Their existence was purely economic, a market for English goods and an exclusive supplier of tobacco, rice, timber, fur, rum, sugar and other important exports. Those who governed for England sent few, if any, reports, and those were incomplete and/or about the coming trouble. Thomas Gage, the commander in chief of the British Army in America, was responsible for territory from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas, in addition to the western bases, from Quebec to Alabama, that Britain gained after the Seven Years’ War. On the other hand, King George III’s influence was limited. Things might have carried on as usual except for the 1772 banking crash and resulting recession. Speculation, greed, extortion and fraud brought the East India Company to its knees, deep in debt with a mountain of tea losing value to a worldwide smuggling trade. The author lists countless mistakes, misunderstandings and plain stupidity, all of which led to revolution. The ultimate cause of the revolt was Britain’s staunch belief in the twin pillars of the British constitution: parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law in a government built on land ownership. Colonists had no rights, and only landowners could attend town meetings. Questions of taxation, religious freedom and the bailout of the East India Company were really just flash points, and the failure of British leadership to recognize the warning signs will astonish readers who thought the Revolution was just about tea.A scholarly yet page-turning, superbly written history.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170938544
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	09/16/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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Copyright © 2015 Nick Bunker.
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