The Last King of America
The Misunderstood Reign of George III
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3.9 • 34 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill and Napoleon
The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating--and will completely change the way readers and historians view his reign and legacy.
Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon--a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The best-known modern interpretation of him is Jonathan Groff's preening, spitting, and pompous take in Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway masterpiece. But this deeply unflattering characterization is rooted in the prejudiced and brilliantly persuasive opinions of eighteenth-century revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, who needed to make the king appear evil in order to achieve their own political aims. After combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of never-before-published correspondence, award-winning historian Andrew Roberts has uncovered the truth: George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck.
In The Last King of America, Roberts paints a deft and nuanced portrait of the much-maligned monarch and outlines his accomplishments, which have been almost universally forgotten. Two hundred and forty-five years after the end of George III's American rule, it is time for Americans to look back on their last king with greater understanding: to see him as he was and to come to terms with the last time they were ruled by a monarch.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The American Revolution is a testament not to George III's tyranny, which was fictitious, but to Americans' yearning for autonomy," according to this meticulously researched revisionist biography. Historian Roberts (Churchill: Walking with Destiny) paints the British monarch, who ruled from 1760 until his death in 1820, as "well-meaning, hard-working, decent, dutiful, moral, cultured and kind," the near-polar opposite of the "wicked tyrannical brute" described by Thomas Paine and other American patriots. In Roberts's view, George III was a loving husband and father, a champion of the Enlightenment, and a constitutional monarchist who ruled in a tumultuous era when America was reaching "political maturity" and Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War brought uncertainty about how the empire would be run and who would pay for it. Roberts blames policy mistakes such as the repeal of the Stamp Act on parliament's factious politics; contrasts George's "staunchly conservative" economic views with those of Prime Minister William Pitt, who oversaw "millions spent on an ever expanding theatre of conflict"; and alleges that the king suffered from "recurrent manic-depressive psychosis," rather than a hereditary blood disorder, as was commonly believed. Though Roberts occasionally forgoes nuance in favor of salvaging his subject's reputation, this is an eye-opening portrait of the man and his times.
Customer Reviews
Outstanding
George III was one of Great Britain’s best monarchs and one of America’s greatest friends. He’s under appreciated.
Interesting book
George may not have been the monster we thought during the revolution.Just a man of his time and probably a good one.