An Empire on the Edge

How Britain Came to Fight America

De: Nick Bunker

Narrado por: Robert Ian Mackenzie

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 Revisiting the tea party from the point of view of British economics and drawing upon new and unpublished sources from Britain and the U.S., he argues that thanks to the colonialists' misunderstandings about the strength of British power, and London's inability to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.

©2014 Nick Bunker (P)2014 Recorded Books

Brilliant perspective on the descent to war

This is a meticulously researched, cogently argued and clearly written book. Bunker’s thesis is that the largely haphazard and privately financed ways in which Britain established its American colonies, and then the mostly hands’-off approach to their oversight, left Americans relatively free to create their own societies and means of governing those societies. The availability of land in America and the lack of institutional authority made Americans both freer and more responsible for their own destiny than were most British. The two societies were therefore drifting apart, making their separation almost inevitable.

When Parliament then tried to assert greater control over the colonies following the Seven Years’ War, it was for the most part ignorant of conditions in, and the expectations of, the colonies. Several years of miscommunication and misunderstanding followed, accelerating the eventual breakup.

Bunker does excellent work interpreting private and official documents in both Britain and America. By exploring so deeply the British point of view, Bunker does a wonderful job clarifying the differences between the British and the Americans. Britain was a hierarchical society, dominated by an elite that was confident of its privileges. The colonies, however, had taken the rhetoric of the Glorious Revolution much more to heart and, even in the South, relied on popular authority. The Americans believed themselves to be British citizens, colleagues of the residents of Britain, and they resented what they took to be being treated as conquered subjects.

While Parliament could treat the Scots, the Irish and even residents of England who couldn’t vote as subjects, it did not have the money or manpower to impose such subservience on a wide open country 3,000 miles away. Nor could it break out of its rigid hierarchical mindset to imagine a different kind of confederation, such as it would ultimately forge with Canada and Australia.

Perhaps nothing so much exemplifies these differences as Bunker’s emphasis on the power brokers from the elite in Britain, but his focus on widely disparate and popular developments in America. This contrast puts the differences in excellent perspective, providing a very clear picture of the descent into war.

This book gives you the other side of the Revolutionary War

The American Revolution’s origins from the British prospective, and delves into the question whether it could have been avoided.

Seen from Across The Water

What did you love best about An Empire on the Edge?

The economics and finances of the British East India Company were explored and their relevance to the Boston Tea Party has never been made so clear before.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. Too long.

Eye opening

A unique view of the American Revolution. The narrative feels modern as if it had happened not long ago.

What a wonderful Book!!

What an amazing book. I have read at least 40 books on the American Revolution but never realized how much I didn’t know until listening to this incredible book. This book gives you the perspective of Great Britain. It’s very detailed and informative. The narrator is also top notch. Please do yourself a favor and buy this book!