The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“American history as if from a barstool, not a lecture podium. Giddy, rollicking, and bold.” —Ilyon Woo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master Slave Husband Wife
"Accessible and impassioned entry to anyone interested in understanding the nation's founding from a dazzling, kaleidoscopic perspective. " —Ned Blackhawk, National Book Award-winning author of The Rediscovery of America
A prize-winning historian's fascinating and unfamiliar recasting of America's war of independence as a transformative international event
In this revelatory and enthralling book, award-winning historian Richard Bell reveals the full breadth and depth of America’s founding event. The American Revolution was not only the colonies’ triumphant liberation from the rule of an overbearing England; it was also a cataclysm that pulled in participants from around the globe and threw the entire world order into chaos. Repositioning the Revolution at the center of an international web, Bell’s narrative ranges as far afield as India, Africa, Central America, and Australia. As his lens widens, the “War of Independence” manifests itself as a sprawling struggle that upended the lives of millions of people on every continent and fundamentally transformed the way the world works, disrupting trade, restructuring penal systems, stirring famine, and creating the first global refugee crisis. Bell conveys the impact of these developments at home and abroad by grounding the narrative in the gripping stories of individuals—including women, minorities, and other disenfranchised people. The result is an unforgettable and unexpected work of American history that shifts everything we thought we knew about our creation story.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This eye-opening history makes a persuasive argument that the American Revolution can’t be understood solely through Lexington, Valley Forge, and Yorktown. Historian Richard Bell traces how a colonial rebellion was actually a sprawling international struggle. It’s a fascinating story propelled by global rivalries, clashing imperial ambitions, and unlikely alliances stretching from the Caribbean and Canada to India and West Africa. Bell brings this massive scale down to earth through the experiences of ordinary, often overlooked people—Indigenous diplomats brokering fragile alliances, enslaved freedom seekers, European soldiers of fortune, and communities whose promised liberty arrived unevenly, if at all. Their journeys reveal both the creative coalition building that fueled American success and the profound costs borne by communities the world over. The American Revolution and the Fate of the World is a riveting and necessary read for anyone interested in how the war shaped—and was shaped by—the wider world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The American Revolution was "a world war" in "all but name," according to this revealing chronicle. Historian Bell (Stolen) tracks how the conflict "sent caravans of navy vessels... across every ocean on the planet," precipitated "an unprecedented migrant crisis," and "shook the political order" from the Americas to China, "securing freedom and sovereignty for millions, while deferring or denying it for many millions more." The Continental Army was "strikingly polyglot and pluralistic," as was the British coalition, which included Native warriors and Black fugitives from slavery. The Americans relied almost completely on foreign financing and military intervention, turning the war into a full-fledged great-power conflict, with Spain and France attacking British holdings around the world. In telling the full story, Bell places the Sons of Liberty on equal footing with "Chinese tea-pickers... Sierra Leonean separatists, Jamaican washerwomen," and more. Particularly riveting is the story of Molly Bryant, a Mohawk woman and widow of a British "diplomat for Indian affairs," who understood her tribal nation to be "fighting for its survival," with "wealthy speculators" among the revolutionaries, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, "gobbling up thousands of acres" of land; she urged for an alliance with Britain to stop the "land grab." Such riveting profiles provide a clear-eyed accounting of a formative conflict for the modern world.
