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The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies 1760-1785
In The Long Fuse, Don Cook investigates the American Revolution from the British side, throwing new light on this colorful age and its players. He draws from a multitude of primary sources, including personal correspondence and political memoranda, to show how Britain, at the height of her power but suffering from internal political strife, made one mistake after another, culminating in the loss of her prized colonies. In opposition to King George's American policies were such towering figures as William Pitt, Edmund Burke, and Charles James Fox; their speeches in the House of Commons are some of the best oratory in the English language. But despite their eloquence and forcefulness, they did not have the votes to prevail. In the end, the Americans rebelled as much against an English political state of mind as against the British Army. Cook takes us through the war years: King George's decision that "blows must decide" the colonies' future; Lord North's futile effort to negotiate peace after the British defeat at Saratoga, which only hastened the American alliance with France; the secret letter from Washington to Lafayette that the British intercepted, perhaps altering the outcome of the Battle of Yorktown; and the peace negotiations masterminded by Franklin and John Jay. Winner of the Colonial Dames of America Annual Book Award 1996. "The Long Fuse is a marvelous new way of understanding the Revolutionary War. Many Americans have no idea of the extraordinary combination of brilliance, ignorance, stubbornness and intelligence on the British side. We won with a majestic collection of heroes, fools, geniuses, and rogues; they lost with an unforgettable cast of colorful characters. This eye-opening book is a splendid historical synthesis." - John Chancellor
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 7, 2017
A clear, enjoyable and readable history of the American revolution, with a focus on the politics and blunders of the British.
Cook shows how the government in London viewed the colonies and how its policies were usually passed without much debate or controversy (at least before war broke out), and how few people in the British home islands had even met an American colonist (other than lobbyists) He also describes how the Parliament and the press (generally sympathetic to the colonists) affected the conduct of the war, and how British opponents of the war impacted its course. Cook puts most of the blame on George III and his hostility to compromise. There is relatively little on the royal governors, though.
A crisp, well-researched and well-written work.
Cook shows how the government in London viewed the colonies and how its policies were usually passed without much debate or controversy (at least before war broke out), and how few people in the British home islands had even met an American colonist (other than lobbyists) He also describes how the Parliament and the press (generally sympathetic to the colonists) affected the conduct of the war, and how British opponents of the war impacted its course. Cook puts most of the blame on George III and his hostility to compromise. There is relatively little on the royal governors, though.
A crisp, well-researched and well-written work.
January 9, 2020
The Long Fuse is a focused exploration of the failure of leadership that is a historical landmark: King George III of England refused to listen to anyone who tried to tell him that the American Revolutionary War was unwinnable.
The war could have been a lot shorter, and many thousands of lives and fortunes could have been saved, if George had not closed his mind to the prospect of independence for the American colonists.
Cook makes it clear that independence was not the primary goal of the Sons of Liberty and the leaders of the North American rebellion that started after the close of the Seven Years’ War in 1763.
Of course it’s a gross simplification to say that the Americans just want to get Parliament and the king off their backs—the colonials were adamantly professing their loyalty (at least) to the king into the mid-1770s, while they demanded relief from taxes and cessation of interference in their home government.
In The Long Fuse, you’ll learn in detail that the British never committed enough manpower, ships, and money to actually win the war, while the King and his yes-men persisted in acting as if they could do so.
Cook is careful to note that, throughout the preludes to war and the fighting, there was a strong minority in Parliament that opposed the conflict.
Only after the battle of Yorktown (1781) did that parliamentary minority become strong enough to compel the king to give up his solitary defiance of reality. For too many years, too many British lords had lied to themselves and to each other as they allowed King George to pretend he knew what he was doing.
The king was impotent but dangerously powerful. The comparison with Trump is too awful to leave unstated.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com
The war could have been a lot shorter, and many thousands of lives and fortunes could have been saved, if George had not closed his mind to the prospect of independence for the American colonists.
Cook makes it clear that independence was not the primary goal of the Sons of Liberty and the leaders of the North American rebellion that started after the close of the Seven Years’ War in 1763.
Of course it’s a gross simplification to say that the Americans just want to get Parliament and the king off their backs—the colonials were adamantly professing their loyalty (at least) to the king into the mid-1770s, while they demanded relief from taxes and cessation of interference in their home government.
In The Long Fuse, you’ll learn in detail that the British never committed enough manpower, ships, and money to actually win the war, while the King and his yes-men persisted in acting as if they could do so.
Cook is careful to note that, throughout the preludes to war and the fighting, there was a strong minority in Parliament that opposed the conflict.
Only after the battle of Yorktown (1781) did that parliamentary minority become strong enough to compel the king to give up his solitary defiance of reality. For too many years, too many British lords had lied to themselves and to each other as they allowed King George to pretend he knew what he was doing.
The king was impotent but dangerously powerful. The comparison with Trump is too awful to leave unstated.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com
October 23, 2009
The Long Fuse is a sad and frustrating history of the violent separation and origin of the United States from Great Britain. Understanding success is easy sometimes. Understanding multi-origin failure, which starts 20 years before it metastasizes, is a little harder. No reasonable person, based on the facts available really saw the coming crisis between Great Britain and its 13 North American colonies, yet the ingredients were there.
Don Cook was a journalist and historian who spent a good part of his career in Britain. What he brings to this book is his American background to his understanding of how Britain works, especially in the last half of the 18th century. The Long Fuse is a rare popular history that was written to help the reader understand the long chain of events, mistakes and follies that led to the break between eight million British in the home islands, and nearly three million British in North America, forming the United States of America, within an easy to understand context.
Cook’s narrative goes to great lengths to show that the British state never intended to bestow or recognize that their fellow subjects owned the same rights as they did. So when the initial tax acts were passed with hardly any debate or dissent, at the end of a long day before Parliamentary recess, no one could foresee the problem. For other than the 18th century version of political lobbyists, no one in the British state has ever really met an American. So from the beginning of the crisis that followed after the Seven Years War, Cook shows how a common people, separated by distance, used the same language, but were never understanding of each other.
Benjamin Franklin, agent for several colonies, is the representative American for this history because he went from loyal subject, to frustration with the government, to finally a Patriot who refuses even back – channel attempts to negotiate a half-hearted settlement. Lord North, Lord Germain, and King George are most often quoted members of the British state. Their combination of a lack of desire to handle the growing crisis with a passive-aggressive war management style contributed to nothing less than economic and political catastrophe.
By presenting this history strictly from the political and military hierarchy of Britain, Cook sheds a unique light, on perhaps the greatest failure of the British state of the last 300 years. He perhaps wrote this history with a little too much emphasis on King George, and perhaps not enough on the royal governors and military establishment in the colonies. Besides that, this is a fine book and is highly recommended to anyone interested in that time period of British and American history, political history, leadership studies, especially failure in leadership.
Don Cook was a journalist and historian who spent a good part of his career in Britain. What he brings to this book is his American background to his understanding of how Britain works, especially in the last half of the 18th century. The Long Fuse is a rare popular history that was written to help the reader understand the long chain of events, mistakes and follies that led to the break between eight million British in the home islands, and nearly three million British in North America, forming the United States of America, within an easy to understand context.
Cook’s narrative goes to great lengths to show that the British state never intended to bestow or recognize that their fellow subjects owned the same rights as they did. So when the initial tax acts were passed with hardly any debate or dissent, at the end of a long day before Parliamentary recess, no one could foresee the problem. For other than the 18th century version of political lobbyists, no one in the British state has ever really met an American. So from the beginning of the crisis that followed after the Seven Years War, Cook shows how a common people, separated by distance, used the same language, but were never understanding of each other.
Benjamin Franklin, agent for several colonies, is the representative American for this history because he went from loyal subject, to frustration with the government, to finally a Patriot who refuses even back – channel attempts to negotiate a half-hearted settlement. Lord North, Lord Germain, and King George are most often quoted members of the British state. Their combination of a lack of desire to handle the growing crisis with a passive-aggressive war management style contributed to nothing less than economic and political catastrophe.
By presenting this history strictly from the political and military hierarchy of Britain, Cook sheds a unique light, on perhaps the greatest failure of the British state of the last 300 years. He perhaps wrote this history with a little too much emphasis on King George, and perhaps not enough on the royal governors and military establishment in the colonies. Besides that, this is a fine book and is highly recommended to anyone interested in that time period of British and American history, political history, leadership studies, especially failure in leadership.
gave-up-on
October 20, 2012I gave up on this book 90 pages in, so maybe it isn't fair that I review it, but since at this time there's only one other review of it, I hope that someone might find this helpful. I really wanted to like the book, and I think I might go back and try to read it again sometime, but for now, I found it annoying. In almost every passage that Cook quotes, he's italicized the bit he thinks is most important, and then puts [Emphasis Added] after each one, which is what you're supposed to do if you do that, but if you have to do that every time you quote a passage, you either need to find a better way to set up your quotes so that you can quote only what you actually need, or you need to quit assuming your readers are complete morons who can't figure out which bit of the quote is pertinent to your argument. If he'd only done it occasionally, once or twice in the entire book, that would be one thing, but he did it a lot - like every two or three pages, and sometimes in multiple quotes on a page. After a while, the only thing I'd remember reading on a page was [Emphasis Added], so despite really wanting to read a different take on this period in history, I gave up.
February 7, 2017
This was an extremely educational book. Unfortunately, like many books of that type it becomes a bit dry at times. Most of this book focuses on Parlimentary politicking, proceedings and decisions made before and during the American Revolution. I'm sure that the people voting during this 25 year stretch of time didn't realize that Parliment was behaving like a schizophrenic if you were to evaluate all their decisions and policies, but that's basically what was happening and it becomes clear when you read this book.
The decisions they made were not in their own self interest, or arguably, in anyone's interest at all. The King was more concerned about honor and saving face than he was concerned about the good of his people or the kingdom regardless of what he said. The lack of star talent in Parliment that THOUGHT they were awesome is pretty staggering. You know, that's probably the same situation as today in politics actually. How's that for history repeating itself?
The decisions they made were not in their own self interest, or arguably, in anyone's interest at all. The King was more concerned about honor and saving face than he was concerned about the good of his people or the kingdom regardless of what he said. The lack of star talent in Parliment that THOUGHT they were awesome is pretty staggering. You know, that's probably the same situation as today in politics actually. How's that for history repeating itself?
August 26, 2015
I had a hard time putting this book down. As an American, I've obviously studied the American Revolution from the American side. I didn't know much more about the British side than a few names. I learned so much about what was going on (read: the unassailable arrogance and idiocy) with Parliament and George III during the early years of the revolution and through the War for Independence. I understand the American Revolution much better for having read this book. Thanks for the recommendation, Dad!
October 20, 2013
The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies 1760-1785 was an enlightening book. As an American we don't often learn a lot about what was going on in England during the time of the American Revolution. This book describes the events of the era from the English perspective. It also provides information that helps to understand why the American Revolution started and why it went on as long as it did. Great read!
August 11, 2011
If you don't know anything about the Revolutionary War, this account should be balanced with one with the perspective coming from the other side. But it was definitely interesting reading about what was going on in English politics during the time and how events unfolded (or unraveled depending on perspective!).
April 14, 2013
Great history of all the truly stupid things that the English government did to tick off the Colonists. Don Cook is a reporter first, then a book author. He unravels this history clearly, supplying interesting background information about the characters involved. This book is what they didn't present in school but should have. Read it! : )
December 14, 2014
This is a history of our Revolution that few of us is aware of, the POV of the English. A truly fascinating read and confirmation that our Revolution could have been avoided had there been more reasonable at the helm on both sides of the Atlantic.
October 15, 2008
Excellent account of what was going on politically on the British side of the pond. Gives a lucid account of the British causes of the Revolutionary War
December 2, 2017
I noticed recently how one-sided my education about the American Revolution had been. Being American, I only ever heard about it from the one side.
For example:
Q: Why did Britain issue the Intolerable Acts (an American name for them)?
A: Because they were mean/tyrannical
Q: Why did Britain do the Boston Massacre thing?
A: Because they were mean/tyrannical
Q: Why did American throw tea into Boston Harbor?
A: To get back at mean/tyrannical Britain
But surely British leaders did not think about themselves on those terms. And they couldn't have just been jerks, right? Cook does a commendable job of humanizing the often-stereotyped British leadership and explaining how the American colonies went from grateful subjects at the end of the Seven Years War to rebellious independents less than two decades later. I feel much more confident in the (thoroughly preventable) sequence of events that eventually made independence inevitable.
I was also impressed by the deeply human characters that made the war what it was, how the same traits that got them into leadership positions were the ones that made successful resolution of the war impossible. I always like seeing how human nature hasn't changed that much: it might not be encouraging if you want humanity to evolve, but it makes you less likely to believe we're specifically devolving. No, unfortunately we've always been like this.
For example:
Q: Why did Britain issue the Intolerable Acts (an American name for them)?
A: Because they were mean/tyrannical
Q: Why did Britain do the Boston Massacre thing?
A: Because they were mean/tyrannical
Q: Why did American throw tea into Boston Harbor?
A: To get back at mean/tyrannical Britain
But surely British leaders did not think about themselves on those terms. And they couldn't have just been jerks, right? Cook does a commendable job of humanizing the often-stereotyped British leadership and explaining how the American colonies went from grateful subjects at the end of the Seven Years War to rebellious independents less than two decades later. I feel much more confident in the (thoroughly preventable) sequence of events that eventually made independence inevitable.
I was also impressed by the deeply human characters that made the war what it was, how the same traits that got them into leadership positions were the ones that made successful resolution of the war impossible. I always like seeing how human nature hasn't changed that much: it might not be encouraging if you want humanity to evolve, but it makes you less likely to believe we're specifically devolving. No, unfortunately we've always been like this.
July 10, 2020
This is an amazing story--for those of you who like reading fiction or nonfiction set in this period, this gives great perspective in a lot of ways. We see Benjamin Franklin in London, working tirelessly to get members of Parliament to understand the Americans and why measures such as the Stamp Act were totally unworkable. We see King George III and a succession of ministers focused on one thing: getting the Americans to submit. And every time you turn around they do something that only makes things worse. And while some of these people were really nasty (Germain for one), many were well-meaning. Even the king wanted to do his "duty." But even the well-meaning offered Franklin bribes. Franklin, driven beyond endurance, finally decided that the colonies would be better off separated from such a bloated, corrupt government. One thing I did not realize before was that the colonies did not declare their independence until after the king declared them in a state of "rebellion." Legally, they were at war and out from under the king's protection at that point.
February 9, 2019
This is a terrific book. After having read quite a number of accounts of the American revolution and the usual cast of characters, including a number of the key British military types and statesmen, this book filled out the picture. From King George III to William Pitt the younger, I now have a better understanding of the capabilities, attitudes and motives of the other side. The author has presented a clear story with good depth and relevant documentation of the early misunderstandings, rigid policies, logistical problems and shifting attitudes that plagued the British.
May 4, 2021
An interesting and mostly engaging view of the "behind the scenes" of the American Revolution. It lays out the context for some of the most important decisions of the war, and discusses an aspect of the story I haven't really seen before with its focus on England's politics. Not really a primer on the American Revolution, this book instead fills a useful niche
February 23, 2019
Well-written synopsis of the Revolutionary War told from the side of the British. It was interesting to read that many members of the Houses of Lords and Commons were not in favor of the War, but that King George was determined that it should continue until long past it’s “Use-by date” .
December 6, 2021
Very good overview of the American Revolution from the perspective of the British. Clear and concise, yet engaging in scope and character, The Long Fuse is certainly worth your read.
March 20, 2022
It was well organized, well researched and well written. Also, I learned a lot that I wanted to know.
August 2, 2009
This fascinating book tells the story of the American Revolution from the British point of view. [Author: Barbara Tuchman] covered some of the same material, although more briefly, in The March of Folly; here Dan Cook goes into some detail regarding every step of the way. I was especially interested to read about the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris at the end of the war, a topic I had known little about.
August 27, 2010
The story of the Revolutionary War, told almost exclusively from England's point of view. Don Cook, an American reporter who lived in Europe for many years, uses a number of primary and secondary sources to create a lively account of King George III, his ministers, the members of Parliament, and the British generals who fought the war. An easy read, full of detail and told with a wry sense of humor.
September 3, 2007
Don't remember a lot of details, but I recall this being a solid and readable history of the leadup to the Revolutionary War, with interesting insights into the personalities and politics of Great Britain.
October 5, 2013
One of the only books I have found on the topic of how England lost USA seen from the English perspective. Undoubtedly one of the biggest losses in the history of mankind. I found this book really good and educational and I can really recommend this book if you're interested in this part of history
January 31, 2016
A general indictment of King George III and it was not due to madness, just stupidity.
February 18, 2008
history
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews