Book cover of An Empire Divided

Book description

There were 26-not 13-British colonies in America in 1776. Of these, the six colonies in the Caribbean-Jamaica, Barbados, the Leeward Islands, Grenada and Tobago, St. Vincent; and Dominica-were among the wealthiest. These island colonies were closely related to the mainland by social ties and tightly connected by trade. In a…

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Why read it?

1 author picked An Empire Divided as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

“If ideas like freedom and liberty were important, why didn’t the whole empire rebel?” Undergraduate me asked this question in lecture to Gordon Wood, one of the foremost advocates of the role of ideas in the Revolution. Wood was an amazing lecturer: he brought even cynical students to tears in his last lecture of the term on the Revolution, exiting to applause in what felt like a mic drop.

He answered my question well enough—he mentioned the Royal Navy’s capacity to deter Nova Scotia and island colonies from rebellion—but he hemmed and hawed as he spoke. There was a gap…

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