First Published in 1980. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

From one of our most acclaimed and original colonial historians, a groundbreaking book tracing the critical "long year" of 1774 and the revolutionary change that took place from the Boston Tea Party and the First Continental Congress to the Battles of Lexington and Concord. A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In this masterly work of history, the culmination of more than four decades of research and thought, Mary Beth Norton looks at the sixteen months leading up to the clashes at Lexington and Concord in mid-April 1775. This was the critical, and often overlooked, period when colonists traditionally loyal to King George III began their discordant “discussions” that led them to their acceptance of the inevitability of war against the British Empire. Drawing extensively on pamphlets, newspapers, and personal correspondence, Norton reconstructs colonial political discourse as it took place throughout 1774. Late in the year, conservatives mounted a vigorous campaign criticizing the First Continental Congress. But by then it was too late. In early 1775, colonial governors informed officials in London that they were unable to thwart the increasing power of local committees and their allied provincial congresses. Although the Declaration of Independence would not be formally adopted until July 1776, Americans had in effect “declared independence ” even before the outbreak of war in April 1775 by obeying the decrees of the provincial governments they had elected rather than colonial officials appointed by the king. Norton captures the tension and drama of this pivotal year and foundational moment in American history and brings it to life as no other historian has done before.

During the American War for Independence in Augustand September, 1777, the British invaded Delaware aspart of an end-run campaign to defeat GeorgeWashington and the Americans and capture the capitalat Philadelphia. For a few short weeks the hills andstreams in and around Newark and Iron Hill and at Cooch's Bridge along the Christina River were the focus of worldhistory as the British marched through the Diamond State between the Chesapeake Bay and Brandywine Creek.This is the story of the British invasion of Delaware,one of the lesser known but critical watershedmoments in American history.

The idea of "race" played an increasing role in nineteenth-century British colonial thought. For most of the nineteenth century, John Crawfurd towered over British colonial policy in South-East Asia, being not only a colonial administrator, journalist and professional lobbyist, but also one of the key racial theorists in the British Empire. He approached colonialism as a radical liberal, proposing universal voting for all races in British colonies and believing all races should have equal legal rights. Yet at the same time, he also believed that races represented distinct species of people, who were unrelated. This book charts the development of Crawfurd’s ideas, from the brief but dramatic period of British rule in Java, to his political campaigns against James Brooke and British rule in Borneo. Central to Crawfurd’s political battles were the debates he had with his contemporaries, such as Stamford Raffles and William Marsden, over the importance of race and his broader challenge to universal ideas of history, which questioned the racial unity of humanity. The book taps into little explored manuscripts, newspapers and writings to uncover the complexity of a leading nineteenth-century political and racial thinker whose actions and ideas provide a new view of British liberal, colonial and racial thought.

This book studies the exclusive refractive perspectives of British women who took up the twin challenges of travel and writing when Britain was establishing itself as the greatest empire on earth. Contributors explore the ways in which travel writing has defined women’s engagement with Empire and British identity, and was inextricably linked with the issue of identity formation. With a capacious geographical canvas, this volume examines the multifaceted relations and negotiations of British women travellers in a range of different imperial contexts across continents from America, Africa, Europe to Australia.

Historians often view early modern Ireland as a testing ground for subsequent British colonial adventures further afield. McGrath argues against this passive view, suggesting that Ireland played an enthusiastic role in the establishment and expansion of the first British Empire. He focuses on two key areas of empire-building: finance and defence.