The British Isles And The War Of American Independence

This book examines a hitherto neglected aspect of the War of American Independence, providing the first wide-ranging account of the impact of this eighteenth-century conflict upon the politics, economy, society and culture of the British Isles. The author examines the level of military participation - which was much greater than is usually appreciated - and explores the war's effects on subjects as varied as parliamentary reform, religious toleration and attitudes to empire. The books casts new light upon recent debate about the war-waging efficiency of the British state, and on the role of war in the creation of a sense of 'Britishness'. The thematic chapters are supplemented by local case studies of six very different communities the length and breadth of the British Isles.

The American war against British imperial rule (1775-1783) was the world's first great popular revolution. Ideologically defined by the colonists' formal Declaration of Independence in 1776, the struggle has taken on something of a mythic character. From the Boston Tea Party to Paul Revere's ride to raise the countryside of New England against the march of the Redcoats; and from the American travails of Bunker Hill (1775) to the final humiliation of the British at Yorktown (1781), the entire contest is now emblematic of American national identity. Stephen Conway shows that, beyond mythology, this was more than just a local conflict: rather a titanic struggle between France and Britain. The Thirteen Colonies were merely one frontline of an extended theatre of operations, with each superpower aiming to deliver the knockout blow. This bold new history recognizes the war as the Revolution but situates it on the wider, global canvas of European warfare.

The bitter and often bloody fight which accompanied the emergence of the United States of America as an independent force on the world stage has always been a subject of much debate and controversy. Historian Jeremy Black challenges many traditional assumptions and conveys vividly the immediacy of events such as the battles of Bunker Hill and Saratoga and the sieges of Charleston and Yorktown, as well as less famous incidents, while also offering an original and thorough assessment of the campaign in its American, colonial and European contexts. Combining a chronological survey of the war with a thematic examination of the major issues, The War for American Independence, 1775–1783 is a comprehensive account of a remarkable campaign.

Stephen Conway's study offers a different perspective on eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland's relationship with continental Europe, acknowledging areas of difference and distinctiveness, but also pointing to areas of similarity.

"Matthew P. Dziennik has written a compelling account of the Scottish Highland soldier and his service in Great Britain's American colonies during the French and Indian War and America's Revolutionary War. In the middle to the late decades of the eighteenth century, the British state recruited more than twelve thousand soldiers from the Highlands of Scotland for the purpose of expanding and defending Britain's American empire, thereby transforming the most maligned region of the British Isles into a key sustainer of British imperialism. Dziennik's fascinating history corrects the mythologized image of the Highland soldier as a noble savage, a primitive if courageous relic of clanship, revealing instead how the Gaels used their military service to further their own interests in terms of material security and social status. Using both English and Gaelic sources, the author re-creates the experiences and the mindset of the Highland soldier in the New World and demonstrates in the process how a periphery of the British Isles became a center of the British Empire." -- [Tiré de la jaquette].

Much has been written about the British army’s campaigns during the many wars it fought in the eighteenth century, but for over 150 years no one has attempted to produce a history of the army as an institution during this period. That is why Stephen Conway’s perceptive and detailed study is so timely and important. Taking into account the latest scholarship, he considers the army’s legal status, political control and administration, its system of recruitment, the relationships between officers and men, and the social and economic as well as constitutional interactions of the army with British and other societies. Throughout the book a key theme is order and control. How did a small number of officers exercise authority over large numbers of common soldiers? Traditionally the answer has focused on the role of a draconian system of corporal and capital punishment – by extensive use of the lash and the rope. Yet no institution can function through fear alone and he shows that the obedience of its common soldiers had to be negotiated by their officers who were very aware of their men’s sense of their entitlements, and their conception of military service as contractual. By uncovering the mental world of both officers and common soldiers, Stephen Conway offers a very different view of how the British army operated between the Hanoverian succession and the end of the War of American Independence. His work will be fascinating reading for all students of British military history.

"This book was presented in part as the 1981 Jefferson Memorial Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, May 19-21, 1981"--T.p. verso.