Britain To America

A history of the relationship between Great Britain and the United States ranges from the establishment of the first English colony in the New World to the present day, examining both nations in terms of what connected them and what drove them apart.

Winner of the George Washington Prize Winner of the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History Winner of the Excellence in American History Book Award Winner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award From the bestselling author of the Liberation Trilogy comes the extraordinary first volume of his new trilogy about the American Revolution Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn and two other superb books about World War II, has long been admired for his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now he turns his attention to a new war, and in the initial volume of the Revolution Trilogy he recounts the first twenty-one months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who becomes a brilliant battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves to be the wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. The story is also told from the British perspective, making the mortal conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling. Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of our country’s creation drama.

Britain and the USA have helped define much of world history in recent centuries, and the relationship between the two is crucial to this history. This book focuses on a key period in their relationship that moulded the character of the British Empire, the USA and the way the two have interacted since. The rise and crises of empires will always fascinate the observer because in their fate we see much of human history. Certainly the struggle for empire in the 18th Century was key to the fate of North America. British victory followed by the American Revolution helped to define the modern world. The European nations of Britain, France and Spain were eager for predominance and the trappings of trade, land and prestige. Within North America, there were the local agents of these powers and their subjects, who in turn held their own interests and views; whilst the Native Americans were more than simply the passive victims of European expansion. This fascinating and complex story is told by Black with narrative drive and scholarly acumen.

Investigates the ties binding the interests of London and Washington, and argues that British policies are too closely bound to those of the US which made Britain the junior partner and accelerated its imperial decline.

Britain, America and the Special Relationship since 1941 examines the Anglo-American strategic and military relationship that developed during the Second World War and continued until recent years. Forged on a common ground of social, cultural, and ideological values as well as political expediency, this partnership formed the basis of the western alliance throughout the Cold War, playing an essential part in bringing stability to the post-1945 international order. Clearly written and chronologically organized, the book begins by discussing the origins of the ‘Special Relationship’ and its progression from uneasy coexistence in the eighteenth century to collaboration at the start of the Second World War. McKercher explores the continued evolution of this partnership during the conflicts that followed, such as the Suez Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Falklands War. The book concludes by looking at the developments in British and American politics during the past two decades and analysing the changing dynamics of this alliance over the course of its existence. Illustrated with maps and photographs and supplemented by a chronology of events and list of key figures, this is an essential introductory resource for students of the political history and foreign policies of Britain and the United States in the twentieth century.

History records only one peaceful transition of hegemonic power: the passage from British to American dominance of the international order. To explain why this transition was nonviolent, Kori Schake explores nine points of crisis between Britain and the U.S., from the Monroe Doctrine to the unequal “special relationship” during World War II.

WINNER OF THE 2015 GEORGE WASHINGTON PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2015 PULTIZER PRIZE IN HISTORY In this powerful narrative, Nick Bunker tells the story of the last three years of mutual embitterment that preceded the outbreak of America’s war for independence in 1775. It was a tragedy of errors, in which both sides shared responsibility for a conflict that cost the lives of at least twenty thousand Britons and a still larger number of Americans. Drawing on careful study of primary sources from Britain and the United States, An Empire on the Edge sheds new light on the Tea Party’s origins and on the roles of such familiar characters as Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Hutchinson. At the heart of the book lies the Boston Tea Party, an event that arose from fundamental flaws in the way the British managed their affairs. With lawyers in London calling the Tea Party treason, and with hawks in Parliament crying out for revenge, the British opted for punitive reprisals without foreseeing the resistance they would arouse. For their part, the Americans underestimated Britain’s determination not to give way. By the late summer of 1774, the descent into war had become irreversible.

The United States was made in Britain. For over a hundred years following independence, a diverse and lively crowd of emigrant Americans left the United States for Britain. From Liverpool and London, they produced Atlantic capitalism and managed transfers of goods, culture, and capital that were integral to US nation-building. In British social clubs, emigrants forged relationships with elite Britons that were essential not only to tranquil transatlantic connections, but also to fighting southern slavery. As the United States descended into Civil War, emigrant Americans decisively shaped the Atlantic-wide battle for public opinion. Equally revered as informal ambassadors and feared as anti-republican contagions, these emigrants raised troubling questions about the relationship between nationhood, nationality, and foreign connection. Blending the histories of foreign relations, capitalism, nation-formation, and transnational connection, Stephen Tuffnell compellingly demonstrates that the United States’ struggle toward independent nationhood was entangled at every step with the world’s most powerful empire of the time. With deep research and vivid detail, Made in Britain uncovers this hidden story and presents a bold new perspective on nineteenth-century trans-Atlantic relations.

From 1820 to 1860, the United States and Great Britain were the two most closely interconnected countries in the world in terms of culture and economic growth. In an important addition to immigration history, William Van Vugt explores who came to America from Great Britain during this period and why. Disruptions and economic hardships, such as the repeal of Britain's protective Corn Laws, the potato famine, and technological displacement, do not account for the great mid-century surge of British migration to America. Rather than desperation and impoverishment, Van Vugt finds that immigrants were motivated by energy, tenacity, and ambition to improve their lives by taking advantage of opportunities in America. Drawing on county histories, passenger lists of immigrant ships, census data, and manuscript collections in Great Britain and the United States, Van Vugt sketches the lives and fortunes of dozens of immigrant farmers, miners, artisans, skilled and unskilled laborers, professionals, and religious nonconformists.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, Anglo-Americans purchased an unprecedented number and array of goods. The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America investigates these diverse artifacts—from portraits and city views to gravestones, dressing furniture, and prosthetic devices—to explore how elite American consumers assembled objects to form a new civil society on the margins of the British Empire. In this interdisciplinary transatlantic study, artifacts emerge as key players in the formation of Anglo-American communities and eventually of American citizenship. Deftly interweaving analysis of images with furniture, architecture, clothing, and literary works, Van Horn reconstructs the networks of goods that bound together consumers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Moving beyond emulation and the desire for social status as the primary motivators for consumption, Van Horn shows that Anglo-Americans' material choices were intimately bound up with their efforts to distance themselves from Native Americans and African Americans. She also traces women's contested place in forging provincial culture. As encountered through a woman's application of makeup at her dressing table or an amputee's donning of a wooden leg after the Revolutionary War, material artifacts were far from passive markers of rank or political identification. They made Anglo-American society.