The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World

by Linda Colley

Overview

Best Books of the Year: Financial Times, The Economist
Book of the Year: The Leaflet (International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism)
Longlisted for the Cundill History Prize
Profiled in The New Yorker
New York Times Book Review • Editors’ Choice

Vivid and magisterial, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen reconfigures the rise of a modern world through the advent and spread of written constitutions.

A work of extraordinary range and striking originality, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen traces the global history of written constitutions from the 1750s to the twentieth century, modifying accepted narratives and uncovering the close connections between the making of constitutions and the making of war. In the process, Linda Colley both reappraises famous constitutions and recovers those that have been marginalized but were central to the rise of a modern world.

She brings to the fore neglected sites, such as Corsica, with its pioneering constitution of 1755, and tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the first place on the globe permanently to enfranchise women. She highlights the role of unexpected players, such as Catherine the Great of Russia, who was experimenting with constitutional techniques with her enlightened Nakaz decades before the Founding Fathers framed the American constitution. Written constitutions are usually examined in relation to individual states, but Colley focuses on how they crossed boundaries, spreading into six continents by 1918 and aiding the rise of empires as well as nations. She also illumines their place not simply in law and politics but also in wider cultural histories, and their intimate connections with print, literary creativity, and the rise of the novel.

Colley shows how—while advancing epic revolutions and enfranchising white males—constitutions frequently served over the long nineteenth century to marginalize indigenous people, exclude women and people of color, and expropriate land. Simultaneously, though, she investigates how these devices were adapted by peoples and activists outside the West seeking to resist European and American power. She describes how Tunisia generated the first modern Islamic constitution in 1861, quickly suppressed, but an influence still on the Arab Spring; how Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone—inspired by the American Civil War—devised plans for self-governing nations in West Africa; and how Japan’s Meiji constitution of 1889 came to compete with Western constitutionalism as a model for Indian, Chinese, and Ottoman nationalists and reformers.

Vividly written and handsomely illustrated, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen is an absorbing work that—with its pageant of formative wars, powerful leaders, visionary lawmakers and committed rebels—retells the story of constitutional government and the evolution of ideas of what it means to be modern.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871403162
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	1,097,710
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

A professor of history at Princeton, Linda Colley is the author of books including Britons, winner of the Wolfson Prize, and The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh, a New York Times Best Book of the Year. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Into and Out of Europe 15

Chapter 1 The Multiple Trajectories of War 17

Corsica 17

The Wider Reasons Why 20

A More Expansive, More Expensive Warfare 25

Hybrid Wars and Revolutions 34

Haiti: The Exception that Broke and Proves Some Rules 41

Chapter 2 Old Europe, New Ideas 57

St Petersburg 57

War, Paper and Enlightenments 59

A Woman Writing 68

Male Monarchs and Innovation 81

Enter the Charter Man, Enter Tom Paine 92

Part 2 Out of War, Into Revolutions 105

Chapter 3 The Force of Print 107

Philadelphia 107

Arms and the Men and the Printed Word 115

Reading and Borrowing 127

Revising the Script across Continents 133

Power and the Limits of Print 147

Chapter 4 Armies of Legislators 155

Paris 155

Hybrid Warfare Repeated and Extended 161

The Napoleon of Constitutions 168

Invading the Spanish World, Encountering God 183

Assessing the Monster and His Works 193

Chapter 5 Exception and Engine 203

London 203

War and the Limits of Exceptiortalism 210

World City, City of Words and Exiles 219

Remaking South America, Imagining Britain 230

Crossings 243

Part 3 New Worlds 251

Chapter 6 Those Not Meant to Win, Those Unwilling to Lose 253

Pitcairn 253

Why Were Women Left Out? 261

Settler Warfare 276

Tahiti and Writing Back 284

Hawaii and Different Modernities 295

Chapter 7 The Light, the Dark and the Long 1860s 306

Tunisia 306

War Without Boundaries 316

Out of an American Civil War 329

Into Africa, with Hope 341

Losses and Legacies 351

Chapter 8 Break Out 357

Tokyo 357

The Violence of Change 363

The Emperors' New Constitutions 378

Japan and an Altered World 384

Lessons 397

Epilogue 401

Notes 425

Acknowledgements 476

List of Illustrations 478

Index 485

Editorial Reviews

02/08/2021

Constitutions were not just records of political change and consolidation but historical objects and agents in their own right, according to this probing study. Princeton historian Colley (The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh) surveys dozens of constitutions from the 18th through the 20th centuries, including the 1755 constitution written by Corsican independence leader Pasquale Paoli, the 1889 Japanese constitution, and the 1838 constitution of Pitcairn Island (settled in 1790 by nine HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions), one of the first charters to grant women the vote. Colley attributes the spread of constitutions to the rising scale and cost of trans-oceanic warfare, which led to crises that required governments to concede rights and political participation to their subjects. Print culture then spread the “new constitutional technology” around the world to inspire reformers—the 1790s, the author notes, saw a craze for amateur constitution-writing—and serve as sacred texts dissidents could rally around in their battles against oppressive states. Copiously researched and elegantly written, Colley’s treatise goes beyond the usual Anglo-American focus of constitutional history to show the global impact of the constitutionalist movement. The result is a fresh and illuminating take on these still-living documents. Photos. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"No one can accuse Linda Colley of shying away from big subjects. This one is as big as they come — nothing less than an exploration of the origin of written constitutions.... The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is a remarkable feat of scholarship on an international scale.... [There are] many insights in this impressive book."

The Spectator - Jonathan Sumption

"Fascinating and important... Colley’s wide-ranging survey covers many aspects of the global impact of constitutions, from the crucial importance of printers and publishers, to Thomas Paine’s interest in putting political and legal concepts on paper, to Toussaint Louverture defying the French in 1801 and publishing his own constitution for a future Black-ruled Haiti... This carefully crafted exploration shows how constitutions have helped to bring about an extraordinary revolution in human behavior, ideas and beliefs over the years. Though constitutions are flawed, Colley writes, 'in an imperfect, uncertain, shifting, and violent world, they may be the best we can hope for.'"

Bookpage - Roger Bishop

"In Linda Colley's new book, constitutions fizzle with the energy of war, navigation and power.... She avoids the idea that these documents are gifted to the people by elites.... This fascinating global history shows that while constitutions are surrounded by an ocean of competing interests and violence, read together they tell a tale of how interconnected the story of political hope has always been."

Prospect - Peter Chappell

"As a piece of historical thinking, argument and writing, it is magisterial by every criterion, the most impressive outcome, thus far, of what has already been a career of great creativity. It is a measure, equally, of how the discipline of history has changed over the past twenty years."

Times Literary Supplement - Richard Drayton

"Colley writes with such elegance and verve that the journey, and the characters it involves, are always fascinatingly worthwhile. This is an original global history that adds to readers’ understanding of the world they live in..... The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is an ambitiously wide-ranging account of the forces that propelled the writing of constitutions – documents that have defined the modern world – from the middle of the 18th century to today."

The Economist

"A wide-ranging, beautifully written global history... Colley’s narrative is rich, and she emphasizes the colorful characters who have contributed to constitution-making projects around the world."

Tom Ginsburg

10/01/2020

Wolfson Prize winner Colley's chronicle retells modern history from the perspective of the constitutions drafted over the last three centuries by rulers from Catherine the Great to Tunisian soldier-constitutionalist Khayr al-Din, also embracing the first constitution to enfranchise women, for Pitcairn Island in 1838.

Library Journal

2021-02-10
A sprawling global history, beginning in the 1750s, showing the incalculable impact of the drafting of written constitutions.

In this wildly ambitious, prodigiously researched work, Princeton history professor Colley, a winner of the Wolfson History Prize, traces how the proliferation of written constitutions coalesced with the rise of hybrid warfare—land and sea—thus protecting the rights of those who were soldiering as well as those affected by violent invasions. Aside from the Magna Carta, signed in 1215, written documents delineating the rights and duties of “citizens” were rare until the Enlightenment, when literacy increased across Europe and philosophers such as Montesquieu popularized ideas of political liberty and separation of powers. Even among monarchs like Russia’s Catherine the Great—who wrote and published the extensive Nakaz, or Grand Instruction, in 1767, modernizing the codes and laws of Russia—the era spawned countless paper documents that addressed complex matters of law, politics, and even literature and philosophy. Though occasionally unfocused, the narrative ranges widely and fascinatingly across continents and prominent historical figures, from Pasquale Paoli in Corsica to Simón Bolívar in South America to George Washington in the nascent U.S. In Europe, the constitution-writing frenzy hit its apex during the Napoleonic era. Especially groundbreaking is Colley’s study of the written documents of non-European nations—e.g., Haiti—and in far-flung locales like the South Pacific island of Pitcairn (thanks to a Scottish captain, the islanders adopted a true democracy in 1838, enfranchising both men and women). The author’s subchapter entitled “Why Were Women Left Out?” proves immensely elucidating. As Colley shows, many constitutions, such as the state of New Jersey’s, originally recognized the participation of women before excluding them. Because many of these documents were “deployed to offer recompense for adequate supplies of manpower, they tended to lay stress on what was viewed as a uniquely masculine contribution to the state, namely, armed service.”

A sweeping, unique, truly world-spanning political and military history.

Kirkus Reviews

"One of our most imaginative and relevant historians... Colley takes you on intellectual journeys you wouldn’t think to take on your own."

The Times - David Aaronovitch

"Linda Colley’s historical expeditions are often inspiring... revealing new, deeper ways of understanding."

Financial Times - John Lloyd

"[A] terrific new global history of constitutions.... [of] many captivating stories.... Colley has produced a brilliant world history. The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is a compelling and stylish corrective to any notion that constitutions are a somnolent backwater devoid of drama and historical significance."

Literary Review - H. Kumarasingham

"If there were a Nobel Prize in History, Colley would be my nominee… An incandescent, paradigm-shifting new book."

The New Yorker - Jill Lepore

"A helpful contribution to this growing field.... Colley’s work echoes that of the great scholar of nationalism, Benedict Anderson.... Interestingly, Colley shows that early constitutions were not simply the result of demands from below.... The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen has important lessons for anyone interested in political development today."

Sheri Berman

"Dazzling.... Colley conducts a vivid worldwide tour of 'a contagious political genre'.... The result is one of the most enthralling, illuminating and inspiring works of global history in decades.... The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen proves that the history of constitutions is too important to be left to constitutional lawyers. This is a big book in every sense: vast in scope, broad in ambition, and rich in stories, convergences and insights."

BBC History - David Armitage

"[A] dazzling global history... pulling away the blinkers of national stories, widening the focus, and showing—as the current pandemic has done—how interconnected all our lives and interests are... Bold... Abounds with subtle arguments grounded in expertly marshaled sources, generously acknowledged. But perhaps the book's most impressive aspect is its mobility, felt not only in the fluid narratives but in the movement of constitutional ideas themselves."

New York Review of Books - Jenny Uglow

Narrating this broad history, Susan Ericksen combines respect for the author’s work with the tone and phrasing needed to make listening enjoyable. Ericksen’s slow enunciation is fitting but will challenge some listeners’ ability to track the ideas in longer sentences. But with her grasp of the author’s intentions never in doubt, the work holds together with satisfying coherence. Tracing the global spread of constitutions from 1750 to the present, British historian Linda Colley shows how these foundational documents were needed by emerging nations to secure the rights of men so they would agree to be taxed and sent to war on land and sea. Her smooth writing shows how cultural and literary trends shaped constitutions, and how colorful leaders helped them spread across six continents. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

Narrating this broad history, Susan Ericksen combines respect for the author’s work with the tone and phrasing needed to make listening enjoyable. Ericksen’s slow enunciation is fitting but will challenge some listeners’ ability to track the ideas in longer sentences. But with her grasp of the author’s intentions never in doubt, the work holds together with satisfying coherence. Tracing the global spread of constitutions from 1750 to the present, British historian Linda Colley shows how these foundational documents were needed by emerging nations to secure the rights of men so they would agree to be taxed and sent to war on land and sea. Her smooth writing shows how cultural and literary trends shaped constitutions, and how colorful leaders helped them spread across six continents. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile