Britain Colonies

Daniel Bradford, a poor young Brit, is separated in a cruel twist of fate from his sister, Lyna, and left to rot in the infamous Dartmoor Prison. His only hope for escape comes when he agrees to a seven-year indenture in America. But he discovers he had traded one imprisonment for another under a cruel and exacting master, Sir Leo Rochester.

For readers of Annette Gordon-Reed and Nikole Hannah-Jones, the shocking untold story of the British royal family’s centuries-long investment in slavery and continued profiting off its legacy—from Elizabeth I to the present—and the monarchy’s culpability in the racial injustice that gave...

The American Revolution signalled a great change in the course of world history and progress. From this colonial revolt sprouted ideals of liberty and democracy, and all the aspirations and ambitions of a new people. In this work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood discusses the character and consequences of the revolution, grounding the events and ideas that shaped the American consciousness.

In 1609, two years after its English founding, colonists struggled to stay alive in a tiny fort at Jamestown. John Smith fought to keep order. When he left, desperate colonists ate lizards, rats, and human flesh. Meanwhile, the Virginia-bound Sea Venture was shipwrecked on Bermuda, the dreaded, uninhabited “Isle of Devils”. Bermuda became England’s second New World colony in 1612. A Tale of Two Colonies examines the existing sources on the colonies, sets them in a transatlantic context, and weighs them against circumstantial evidence.

George III is remembered as the king who lost America, the stubborn monarch condemned in the Declaration of Independence and the troubled ruler whose illness eventually removed him from power. Yet his reign was far longer, more complicated and more consequential than this familiar caricature suggests. Ascending the throne at twenty-two, George inherited a victorious but heavily indebted empire. His determination to defend parliamentary sovereignty helped transform colonial protest into revolution, while his refusal to concede defeat prolonged a war Britain could no longer contain. France ...

Step into an epic African history of fierce anti-colonial resistance and the gold-rich statecraft that defied an empire. Perfect for a focused commute, this immersive deep-dive transports you to the dense forests of West Africa where the legendary Kumasi confederacy was forged. Witness the rise...

Bloomsbury presents From Trenton to Yorktown by John R. Maass, read by Jeff Harding. This sweeping narrative is an astute exploration of the five critical military events that changed the outcome of the Revolutionary war. For eight grueling years, American and British military forces struggled...

FROM THE WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE and author of EAST WEST STREET THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Should be read by anyone who cares about justice, humanity and human rights' Elif Shafak 'An essential account' Sunday Times 'Powerful and persuasive . . . superb' Abdulrazak Gurnah...

The remarkable story of George Downing—savvy soldier, politician, diplomat, spy, and one of the most scandalous figures of his era. Judged by contemporaries to be a "perfidious rogue," Sir George Downing rose to prominence during the English Civil War as Oliver Cromwell's chief of military...

The first successful American colony in North America was settled in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia. Though the Virginian colonists had difficulty in the beginning, by the late 1620s the Chesapeake area was thriving, having become a haven for those seeking economic opportunity in the new world.

The modern history of Africa was until very recently written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history.

A young Indian man is tapped to help his country’s fight for freedom—but his heart engages him in a different war. “Grand, sweeping, mesmerizing . . . a richly detailed, politically profound story of love, of migration, of individuals caught up in the great convulsions of history...

From its first publication in 2007, Lawrence Hill's masterpiece, The Book of Negroes, has touched readers around the world with its unforgettable story. Now a six-part CBC mini-series starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Louis Gossett Jr., and Ben Chaplin, this beloved novel tells the story of Aminata...

Charles Townshend did not live to see the American Revolution, but he helped make it harder to avoid. Brilliant, witty, ambitious, unstable, and dangerously clever, Townshend rose through the world of Georgian politics as one of Parliament’s most dazzling speakers. He belonged to the ruling class that believed Britain’s empire could be managed through law, revenue, and authority. But in 1767, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he made the decision that attached his name permanently to the crisis with America. The Townshend duties placed taxes on imported goods such as glass, lead, paint, ...

Frederick North should have been a forgettable prime minister. He was clever, cautious, loyal to his king and competent with the nation’s accounts – exactly the sort of steady hand Georgian Britain expected to keep the machine of government ticking over. Instead, history branded him with six brutal words: the man who lost America. The Prime Minister’s Burden: Lord North and the Loss of America is a narrative political biography that looks past the caricature. It follows North from his comfortable rise through Parliament and the Treasury to the moment the American colonies turned from ...

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event - known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 - galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa.

While the battle had a profound impact, it has also been romanticized and mythologized beyond even epic proportions. Though often forgotten today (more than 250 years after the battle), the Battle of the Plains of Abraham was the culmination of a long siege, and the decisive action itself was an incredibly short affair at less than half an hour. Despite that brevity, both commanding generals were mortally wounded in the exchange, making British General James Wolfe a national hero on both sides of the Atlantic and French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm a convenient scapegoat.

The Napoleonic Wars radically altered the old, established European power dynamics, and in 1795, the British, now emerging as the globe’s naval superpower, assumed control of the Cape as part of the spoils of war. In doing so, they recognized the enormous strategic value of the Cape as global shipping routes were developing and expanding. Possession passed back and forth once or twice, but more or less from that point onward, the British established their presence at the Cape, which they held until the unification of South Africa in 1910.

No one expected that the American colonies might seriously consider fighting their British masters until the infamous Boston massacre of March 1770. On 26 October 1775, George III, King of Great Britain, spoke to Parliament, declaring the American colonies to be in a state of rebellion. Here, for the first time, the use of force was authorized against the rebels.