An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America

by Nick Bunker

Written from a strikingly fresh perspective, this new account of the Boston Tea Party and the origins of the American Revolution shows how a lethal blend of politics, personalities, and economics led to a war that few people welcomed but nobody could prevent.  

In this powerful but fair-minded narrative, British author 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. The British and the colonists failed to see how swiftly they were drifting toward violence until the process had gone beyond the point of no return.

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. By the early 1770s, Great Britain had become a nation addicted to financial speculation, led by a political elite beset by internal rivalry and increasingly baffled by a changing world. When the East India Company came close to collapse, it patched together a rescue plan whose disastrous side effect was the destruction of the tea.

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, Americans underestimated Britain’s determination not to give way. By the late summer of 1774, when the rebels in New England began to arm themselves, the descent into war had become irreversible.

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. The book shows how the king’s chief minister, Lord North, found himself driven down the road to bloodshed. At his side was Lord Dartmouth, the colonial secretary, an evangelical Christian renowned for his benevolence. In a story filled with painful ironies, perhaps the saddest was this: that Dartmouth, a man who loved peace, had to write the dispatch that sent the British army out to fight.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American Revolution, American History, American Revolutionary War, Politics, War

448 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 2014

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A British History Of the Origins Of The American Revolution

The origins of the American Revolution have been much studied but remain complex and controversial. A new book by an English writer, Nick Bunker, "An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America" (2014) studies the event leading up to the Revolutionary War from a British perspective. Bunker began his career as an investment banker before becoming a journalist. He has written an earlier book, "Making Haste from Babylon" (2010) which is a history of an earlier iconic American event involving the Mayflower Pilgrims told from a British perspective.

Bunker's history of the origins of the Revolution is both meticulously researched, factually detailed, and thoughtful. It focuses on the years 1772 -1775 with enough background from earlier years to give continuity to the history. The author does not shy away from judgments and commentary on events. Bunker frequently alternates the flow of the history with discussions and analysis of why things might have happened as they did. His understanding of events is largely judicious and even-handed. Bunker writes with understanding for both Britain and the colonies. His sympathies are clearly with the Americans and the new understanding of freedom that they created with their Revolution.

The book focuses on British participants in the Revolution. Bunker offers portrayals and measured assessments of the British Prime Minister Lord North, of Lord Dartmouth, and of King George III, among others. He portrays British opponents of their government's policy led by Edmund Burke. The British presence in the colonies focuses on General Gage, who badly misread the extent of the colonist's dissatisfaction with Britain, and on the Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson. For the colonists, Benjamin Franklin who lived in England during the years in question and played an important role in events gets a good deal of attention as do John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Massachusetts. A large group of political leaders are aptly portrayed in this book.

If there is a single pivotal event discussed in the book, it would be the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773. But Bunker focuses upon an earlier incident involving a British ship, the Gaspee, which operated off the coast and tried to prevent colonial smuggling. An organized group of colonists in Rhode Island set the Gaspee on fire in 1772, marking an earlier revolutionary act against Britain than the famous Boston Tea Party.

The Tea Party has long assumed an iconic stature as the event which led immediately to the Revolution. Bunker sets the stage for the Tea Party by offering a lengthy account of the British East India Company and its activities in China and in India. He describes a period of intense speculation and greed, followed by recession, in the England of the 1770s which sounds possibly too eerily contemporary. Bunker describes at length the Parliamentary debates that led to the fateful decision to send the East India Company's tea to the colonies with the tax of three cents per pound intact. He describes the reaction on both sides of the Atlantic, the Tea Party, the subsequent Coercive Acts passed in Britain, and the colonists' moves towards independence.

Much of the book describes the inherent and probably insurmountable difficulties Britain faced in governing a widely disparate set of colonies an ocean away given the slowness of communication in the 18th Century. For most of their history, Britain treated the colonies with neglect rather than oppressively. Bunker finds, however, that Britain constantly underestimated and misunderstood the colonists even through the events of 1774. Britain suffered from a lack of information and more importantly from a lack of wanting to know. But the more important source of the Revolution was, Bunker argues, the new concept of freedom advanced in the colonies in which, with all its gross deficiencies such as the institution of slavery, every person would get their political voice. He contrasts this with Britain in the 18th Century with its politics controlled by agricultural communities and the owners of large estates. Bunker quotes Benjamin Disraeli who described the Britain during the Revolutionary years as a constitution based upon property in land -- in which the mindset of the governing class was that of the landed gentry. Bunker writes in commenting upon the vacillating, visionless, if well-meaning activities of Prime Minister North:

"[T]he territorial constitution had its vices too, which far outweighed the benefits it yielded. Hypocrisy and pride were merely the most obvious. The crisis that led to the revolution in America had many causes and ranking high among them was the narrowness of vision that afflicted North and his colleagues. ... The system set mental boundaries that they could not transcend raised as they were in a culture where the landscape and the parish church had been everywhere the signs of privilege. ..... An English parish in the 1770's bore not the slightest resemblance to a township in the colonies. The attitudes that each engendered were profoundly different too."

I had the opportunity to read this book and to think about the American Revolution over the week of the Independence Day holiday. The book needs slow, careful reading. I was moved in reading the story of the Revolution and its origins told so eloquently and well by a British writer with an obvious love for his country. In today's difficult times, I was glad of the opportunity to rethink the American Revolution and its continued importance as a beacon for a new understanding of freedom and liberty.

Robin Friedman

[Porter Broyles · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started this book, I was not sure of how much I would enjoy it. The introduction doesn't seem to talk too much about the American Colonies or the Founding Fathers. It almost felt as if there was a disservice to them by failing to mention central figures.

But as I read the book, it became painfully apparent that this book was not about the Colonies or the Founding Fathers, but about Britian.

More specifically, it was about how (and why) Britian came to fight the Colonies in the Revolution.

As an American, I am all too familiar with the domino affect. Colonial patriots did something, the evil empire responds. The patriots did something else, the evil Red Coats respond. The Colonials do something in response to the evil empire... you get the picture.

That is the American view of American Revolution in a nutshell.

This book challenges that view.

The author rarely mentions 'non-notable' Colonists (e.g. you had to be notable enough for somebody in 18th century Britian to know who you were). This means that stories that Americans know by heart may be mentioned, but the individuals are minimized.

Instead, the book focuses on what was going on in the British Empire. The Boston Tea Party is discussed in great deal, but it isn't a singular event that occured aon December 13 , 1773---it is a pivot point that is built up to in the story of how/why the war occurred.

Just to condense a complicated story into a nutshell---what was the East Indian Company? How important was it to the British Emprie? How does it compare to modern corporations? What was going on with the EIC? Who were the primary investors in the EIC? We know that John Hancock lead patriots to dump out tea in a highly symbolic act---but what did that mean to the British? How did they respond?

The story is so much more complicated and intricate that most American's know... but this is just one example.

To steal an old adage, "how does that affect the price of tea in China," now has more context!

This is a great example of a book that challenges traditional (American) narratives in a manner that doesn't challenge traditional (American) narratives. An alternate history is presented that does not negate anything, but compliments what people already know (or think they know).

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of those books that I saw in the bookstore lots of times, and I always thought it looked like another boring pop-history Revolutionary War book. There are so many! It seems like the history section is nothing but Revolution books and Civil War books, and they are all called "1774: Year of Revolutionary Peoples" or "Wet Muskets: Washington's Daring Plot to Row Across a River and Change the Course of History." But at one point I was idly flipping through it and I realized that this was different. It's not about the revolution at all really. It's about what was happening in Britain (London mainly) during the years leading up to the war. Bunker is trying to explain how the British got into this mess - why didn't they understand how bad things were getting? Why didn't they see that this tea thing was going to spiral out of control? Why did they let themselves get sucked into this unwinnable face-off in Boston?
Bunker goes into particularly good detail about the whole tea calamity. All these politicians trying to do one thing, and businessmen trying to do something else, and American traders trying to do their thing, and no one realizes until way too late that Boston is going to explode if they try to forcibly unload this tea. He also really helps the reader understand some of these people. Like George III. I ended this book actually liking the guy. Seems like he was a pretty decent guy. I mean, he screwed up big time, but it's not like he wasn't trying. He was getting some bad intel. And he wasn't crazy yet.
Surprisingly a fun read! I guess there are some gems hidden in the racks of "Oh my god another book about George Washington."

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book focuses on the several years leading up to the opening of the American Revolutionary War. What makes it different from many books on the topic is that it looks at these years (1772-1775) from the perspective of what was going on in Britain.

At the beginning of this period, crop disasters, bank failures, worries about the movements of the French Navy, the glut of the tea market, and the very precarious status of the East India Company, garnered much attention of Britain’s PM, Lord North, his cabinet, and the Parliament, and placed the American colonies on the back burner. Meanwhile, as tensions between the American colonists and the British officials continued to mount in opposition to British-imposed taxes, the British government miscalculated the extent of the developing hostilities and the resolve of the colonists.

The author provides an in depth account of the complexities of the events as they occurred on the British side of the water as well as a close look at the people involved in the decision-making. Lord North and his contemporaries in charge suffered from a myopic view of policy making as well a peerage system that wed them to the conservation of the status quo and most likely precluded some of the best and brightest minds in Britain from rising to positions of power and influence.

I’ve read more than a few books on the American Revolution but this is only one of two that have not had a primarily America-centric viewpoint (the other being Barbara Tuchman’s The First Salute). Nick Bunker gives a broader perspective for fully understanding what led up to the conflict and at the same time provides some exciting reading for the history buff.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America is an an outstanding contribution to the history of the era of the American War for Independence and the politics and economy of pre Industrial Britain. What sets this book as new and unique among the copious amounts of popular and accessible literature of this time period is an examination of the motivations of the British government and political establishment, especially in regards to finances.

Nick Bunker, a British journalist and historian, has done extensive work in the British central government archives of the period. He has illustrated in this book, through many examples, how the pre industrial British government simply had no real workable plan for managing a vast overseas empire, nor were they capable of handling the era's equivalent of credit and commodity crisis, and as a result, were completely blindsided when issues that had been boiling for decades, erupted in the 1770's.

Far from painting the picture of deliberate tyranny, Bunker, through extensive use and investigation of the primary sources of the era, has shown that the British Crown and ministry were devoted to petty personal concerns, and if they thought of the North American colonies at all, if was purely in reflection of the latest balance sheet. I have read numerous studies of this time period, most of which concerned with political and military action in the American colonies, and came away from this book surprised at how the world of 1770's British political and economic establishments cared little, nor thought much about the American colonies. While appreciative of the financial gain, they mostly saw the colonies as another Ireland - a lesser land solely for economic development.

I have long wondered why the American War for Independence was not averted for a gradual independence like Canada and Australia enjoyed, and thanks to this book, I have a greater understanding why that did not happen. The economic and political structures simply would not have thought or considered it. By the time 1775 rolled along, the conflict became one of pride for the London establishment, to protect investment, and to squash any who remembered the revolt of 1745 or any of the many Irish revolts to not get any ideas. By the time 1778 rolled along, it became a European economic and military war of Empire, and again the Colonies themselves took on a lesser role in the ministry.

As an examination of the economic error and political inattention that led to the War of Independence, from the perspective of the British establishment, this is really a first rate, popular account, and highly recommended.

[Bfisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book describes the period in the early 1770’s when the British colonies on the North American eastern seaboard are on the verge of rebellion and the declaration of independence. It charts the growing estrangement between the population of Massachusetts and the local Crown officials, and between unofficial local leadership and the British government.

In particular, it links how speculation in Britain and British expansion in India, as well as the growing divergence between British and American social and political outlooks contributed to the developing crisis, the Boston Tea Party, the Coercive Acts and the shots fired at Lexington.

The one significant issue I had with this book is that while it described the growing estrangement between New England and the British governing class, it did not address the question of why the mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies united with New England in opposition to British rule.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

very detailed book highlighting events which led to war between Britain and the American colonies and found this very interesting

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting take on the origins of the American Revolution. With a twist. Many works on the subject speak of the mighty British Empire against the underdog colonies. This book provides a fascinating variation on that theme. Indeed, according to this book, Great Britain was in difficult straits for a variety of reasons: serious economic difficulties, strained budget by government, the need to trim spending on the military, a complete lack of understanding of the American colonies, decades of having let the colonies "do their thing."

The book does not explore the Revolutionary War itself. The focus is what happened up to the outbreak of war. Key issues examined: the problems faced by the East India Tea Company, leading this major economic player in Great Britain to the economic brink; the debt incurred by the "French and Indian War" (which was actually a global struggle); the drifting away from subservience to the Empire by the colonies; the lack of understanding in London by leaders of events and trends within the colonies. At the same time, the colonists did not have a clear picture of politics in London. They would take hold of minor news to assume that they had considerable support from the people in the Empire. A series of misunderstandings by both parties. . . .

The work explores the runup to the Boston Tea Party, including events in Rhode Island and elsewhere. The Tea Party, in fact, was only one part of existing resistance as a result of various taxes and enforcement actions by the Empire. The leadership in London is portrayed as bungling, with little clue to the facts on the ground in the colonies. General Gage is portrayed as a ditherer. The major colonial leaders are also described as well as their perceptions of relations with London.

This work is a nice corrective to the view that the British Empire was a mighty force.

[David Eppenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was by far the most comprehensive analysis of British behavior leading up to the Revolutionary War. I have read several histories that have given broad insights into British actions but nothing as was done by this author. He surveyed economic and financial problems being experienced in England at the time and how these matters impacted or deflected attention to our colonoies. It also dealt with the political factions and the problems of communication and public relations. In many respects this book read like a contemporary political election analysis conducted on events 200 years in the past. However, no matter how revealing the analysis the bottom line is the same. Like most wars it was the result of ignorance, arrogance, and intractability....on both sides.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written, thoughtful and readable work.

Bunker looks at the Revolution’s short-term origins from the British perspective, showing how British governments misunderstood the colonists, and how what they saw as reasonable and simple policies could be seen by the colonists as dangerous attacks on their political, religious and economic rights, and how these misunderstandings were influenced by the immense distance between England and America, in terms of distance and time. There were long periods of time where the British government paid hardly any attention to North America. Few British policymakers had ever visited the colonies, and Bunker notes that George III and Lord North were able to, in 1773, maintain a voluminous correspondence without a single mention of America. At the same time, the ministry’s American policies changed almost every day.

The narrative is thorough, insightful and engaging, and Bunker provides good portraits of figures like Lord North, Dartmouth, Burke, Gage, Hutchinson, Franklin, and Hancock. He also does a good job explaining issues like financial troubles of the East India Company and Britain’s debt from the Seven Years’ War.

One of the book’s weaknesses is the time frame Bunker restricts himself to; there could have been more background on previous political development in the American colonies and how their world grew distant from England (like the New England Puritans or the English Civil War) Bunker also happens to be a former investment banker, and some readers may find themselves overwhelmed or bored by his fascination with such economic issues as the inner workings of the imperial tea market.

A well-researched, balanced and illuminating work.

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is history in close-up. It's about British North American policy 1770-75, with particular focus on the decision to export tea to the colonies and then to use force for pacification. It's mostly from the perspective of the British elite, with a modest amount of "meanwhile in Massachusetts...". But we hear far more about Lord Dartmouth and his thinking than about either of the Adams cousins.

The change in perspective makes a number of things visible that I had previously not understood.

- The colonists, and American writers following them, talk about the tyrant King George. This was silly. By the 1770s, parliamentary supremacy was generations old. The policy was set by the cabinet, and the cabinet got to be cabinet because their supporters won elections and because they could convince the hereditary elite in the Lords to back them. This was not up to the king.

- We think of the revolution starting in 1775 and of American independence starting in 1776. In fact already by 1774, community leaders in Massachusetts are setting up a parallel government outside British control, and a colonial militia army not under British control. This was, legally speaking, treason and was understood to be such by the British.

- The British were highly legalistic and this constrained them. It took a long time before the lawyers for the Privy Council would endorse having the army shoot people; if Gage had tried to make a military arrest of the colonial leaders in the early 1770s, a Boston jury might have returned warrants and the Boston populace might have been able to enforce them.

- America in the 1770s was a huge and heavily populated place; there were about 2 million Americans as compared to an English population of perhaps 6.4 million. This is _big_ population to try to hold down by force, especially since the English also had to hang on to Scotland, Ireland, and all their other colonies. It would have been hard to squelch the Americans by force in the 1770s, requiring expense and commitment beyond what was politically feasible before the Americans started shooting.

[History7teacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long, detailed, and fascinating

I thought I would never get through this book, but I couldn’t stop. It gives a fascinating story that is not told elsewhere of how the American Revolution actually ended up happening. Even the appendices are interesting. This book is for people who enjoy history. As a middle school history teacher, this book will color my teaching from now on. I wish I had read it years ago.

[Ash Jogalekar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly illuminating, novel account of the lead-up to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution from the British side, covering the critical years 1772 to 1775. British politics and economics played a seminal role in inciting the conflict (who knew that smuggling which drastically undercut the prices of tea and other commodities played such a huge role in the revolution). As an Englishman Bunker offers a very thoughtful and sympathetic but still fair and balanced portrait of British political leaders and convincingly demonstrates how they were complex characters with far from outright villainous intent.

Unlike the simplistic textbook version of events, Bunker explains in painstaking detail (sometimes too much detail) how the British simply misunderstood the colonists rather than actively oppressed them, seeing them as sources of revenue and little more, largely ignoring them until 1773. Occupied with extending their empire in other parts of the globe and chronically afraid of the French, they thought of the American colonies as a reliable outpost which they would never have to worry about, even as they were losing their grip both on the vast, overstretched geography as well as the hearts and minds of the colonists. They also badly misunderstood that what were for them simple matters of (modest) taxation were for the colonists fundamental matters of religion, individual rights and free trade; unlike other British colonies like India, the North Americans already had a lot of freedom and individual rights, which made England's petulant, scolding attitude highly inflammatory and the decision to separate from the mother country consequently easier.

Even after the Tea Party there was a huge gulf of misunderstanding between King George III, prime minister Lord North, the colonial secretary Lord Dartmouth and the colonists that led to missed opportunities. Support for taking hard measures against the colonies was also far from monolithic, with many famous members of parliament like Edmund Burke delivering fiery speeches against North, and the quality of British democracy was commendable, with even riotous events like the Boston pamphlets and the Tea Party needing proper legislative procedure, witness accounts and documentary evidence to prosecute (the book makes it clear that even by the 1770s the King could make almost no law without parliament's consent). News (including scurrilous "fake news") also took at least a month to travel from one shore to another during those days, compounding the misunderstanding.

The British also made a critical mistake by getting obsessed with Boston and Massachusetts which, although symbolically important, were politically as well as economically much less important than the Southern colonies and the Hudson Valley. After the tea was dumped North basically thought he could quell the rebellion through a targeted local war in Massachusetts or Rhode Island (the most radical state); little did he know that the colony shared deep resentments with other colonies. In a curious sense the British understanding of the colonists was as impoverished as the later American understanding of the Vietnamese. Just like an American General could never see through the eyes of Ho Chi Minh or a Vietnamese peasant, North and his ministers were simply too different from an Ethan Allen or Thomas Young.

Essentially this was a story of many missed opportunities. if they had played their cards right England could well have turned North America into a country like Australia or Canada, essentially an independent republic with intimate ties to the commonwealth, or even defused the budding revolution in 1772 by extending an olive branch of the right kind, perhaps dividing North from South, until it was too late. As it turned out, the two countries indeed turned out to be two nations separated by a common language.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 4.5, which I begrudgingly rounded down. Give us the half star, Goodreads! Bunker does a superb job setting up and exploring how the British political class blundered into the American Revolution. A vast philosophical gap grew between British leaders like Lord North and the egalitarian traders and farmers in Massachusetts. It meant that London had no clue rebellion was coming until it was on their door and then gambled that royal authority could be restored in one battle based on the Jacobite experience. Very fine, illuminating work.

[Barry Sierer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work centers around the decisions of English cabinet ministers, and to a certain degree, the actions of the East India Company, that shaped a political and economic climate that alienated the England from her American colonies. This is definitely a political history rather than a military one. From the author’s perspective, the English government was not tyrannical or cruel, but instead it lacked a basic comprehension of, or interest in, colonial needs and perspectives.

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not actually read this entire book. I skimmed over a lot of it – just too much detail and minutiae about so many events and so many people, most of them forgettable.

The writing was very good, and the research had to have been an immense undertaking by the author. But I would say this is a book for major fans of the history of America's Revolutionary War. Alas, I am only a minor fan.

[Jake Leech · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, detailed account from the British perspective of the three years leading up to the American Revolutionary War. For me, it had echoes of Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, including an inevitable slide into war driven by men with very little idea what they were doing and misplaced motivations. It's easy to judge things in retrospect; Bunker does a good job of providing context.

[Xavier Arellano · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy reading about the American revolution, I can’t recommend this book enough.
There are tons of books about the American side of the story but this book gives great detail as to what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic that led to the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord..
The author even takes you to China and India…

Great read for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of the American Revolution.

[Matt Lanza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a book I would list on my essential reading about the American Revolution. It talks from the British point of view, and it’s easy to see how both our hand (America) and their hand was forced which led to bloodshed. Just an outstanding book, and it’s well worth your time to gain a more complete understanding of that history.

[Lisa Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. Having read a-lot of histories and biographies about the American Revolution, this book provides an excellent view the environment in Britain and the key leaders who would oversee and ultimately decide to go to war. Nick Brinker writes beautifully and with great knowledge and insight.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding account of the road to the revolution from the British perspective. Fascinating insights into how British politics with all its limitations and biases made the revolution virtually inevitable

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty good, if not great, examination of all the reasons why Britain ultimately went to war with the colonists in America, thus starting the American Revolution. Told from the British point of view and focusing on the machinations of figures like Lord North, John Wilkes, Lord Dartmouth, and King George III, it all boils down to economics: in the wake of the victory over France in the Seven Year's War (French-Indian War in America), Great Britain was kind of, sort of broke (wars are expensive). So, in order to pay off debts, the British began to demand higher taxes from Americans who were used to paying very small ones at the time, and the bubble that surrounded the East India Company burst at exactly the wrong time, meaning that England had a lot of tea leaves and nowhere to sell them. Through arrogance, the British decided to send the tea to America, an act that triggered the famous Tea Party of 1773. This book, as I said, is pretty good, if not great. It takes an admittedly complicated story of how economics drove the colonies and Britain apart and tries to turn it into a dramatic, involving narrative. Once I got into it, I could enjoy it more. But I would say this is one that I had trouble getting into, at first. I would recommend it for folks who are interested in the war and its causes, especially from the British point of view.

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is the short version of Nick Bunker’s thesis: King George and his government let the North American colonies slip from their grasp.

A newcomer to the history of the American Revolution might think that this book is a cockeyed way to learn about the “shot heard ‘round the world” and the consequences of the shooting at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.

An informed student of the Revolutionary War probably will find much new material in Bunker’s relentlessly detailed An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America.

On our side of the pond, we don’t have much opportunity to consider the war or the revolution from the British point of view.

Bunker offers devastating detail about the ill-informed, patronizing, self-serving, doctrinaire and sometimes feckless actions of Lord North and the British government in the years that led to the sanguinary clash of British regulars and American farmers-militiamen on the road from Concord, through Lexington, to Boston on “that famous day and year.”

An Empire on the Edge offers an extensively documented case that the British leaders were largely ignorant of the scope and depth of colonial antipathy toward the various punitive measures that Britain sought to impose in North America, as early as 1765 (the Stamp Act) and continuing to the final, ill-fated steps to chastise the city of Boston after the notorious Tea Party in late 1773.

Further, Bunker describes the half-cocked military moves by Lord North and his ministers, in the years leading up to the disastrous outing to Lexington-Concord. The king and his government were not prepared to wage war successfully in North America, partly because they waited too long to believe that the colonists actually would fight, and partly because they disdained the colonials’ fighting capacity, and partly because they put higher priority on their Caribbean sugar colonies, and partly because they were pre-occupied with the military threat posed by France and various European intrigues.

Bunker does not speculate on a question that occurs to me: after that first shot was fired at Lexington, did the British really commit themselves to winning the war?

The king and his government made the commitment to fight. They did not, however, at any time before or during the war, commit all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to the military campaign to regain dominion in North America. At the commencement of fighting, a British victory was not immediately feasible. Perhaps it did not become feasible.

Bunker’s analysis of the planning and wrangling in Lord North’s war room suggests that the British wanted to win, but never pushed the right strategic buttons to bring victory within their grasp.

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved
More reviews on my website:
http://richardsubber.com/

[Michael Griswold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although An Empire on the Edge by Nick Bunker is a book about the lead up to the Revolutionary War, I feel like the skeleton of political decision-making could easily have been transported into the United States from the 2000’s to present. Both sides of the conflict that would lead to the Revolutionary War miscalculated politically—The British did not realize the seriousness of American malcontent until it was too late. The Americans for their part, may not have realized how much their plight mattered or did not matter to the British. One may be able to draw parallel to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when successive presidential administrations failed to appreciate the complexities and challenges of the conflict.

Another interesting actor in this revolutionary saga is the East India Company who seemed to act like the big banks of 2008, leveraging more and more risk and money until they were eventually in financial trouble. The British empires financial issues played no small role in its policies toward its far flung colonies. This books pivotal moment of no return is the Boston Tea Party, but that only happens around the halfway mark. Bunker builds towards the point of no return with the master-stroke of a gifted word painter. The reader almost feels the anger of the colonists and the disinterest or indignation of the British leaders leap from the page.

Even though this book is written from the British point of view, the book comes across even handed and clear headed.

[Ignacio De Leon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reading about why Britain came at odds with the American colonists in the aftermath of the Anglo-French War of 1763. In the surface, a string of seemingly unconnected events stirred increasing animosity between the governing elites of the two peoples; however, deep down ran an insurmountable difference of views about society, wealth creation and colonization of the West Frontier. Britain's landed gentry attempted to make Americans pay monopolistic prices for the glut of tea caused by the East India Company's reckless management. British colonists in America, entrepreneurial and commercially-driven elites would not have it. New laws imposing further taxes and limiting the colonists' attempts to settle beyond the Appalachians simply made matters worse. Both sides were set into collision course. The increasingly complexity of the British Empire simply acted as a catalyst of events, as the empire could no longer be run under the centralist approach of the British elites. This book is excellent to understand the contrast of histories between the U.S. independence from Britain, and the causes of the independence of Hispanic America. Highly readable too.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating account of some economic aspects of the Revolutionary War. In a nutshell, nearly everyone in England was massively in debt. A major money making enterprise was the East India Company in which nearly everyone was invested. A slight problem developed however, smugglers were selling tea at a discounted price that the East India company couldn't match and the authorities couldn't stop the smugglers. As a result the tea market suffered from a glut of tea with no real solution for the problem. So the Brits said "I've got an idea. Let's ship the tea to the colonies, charge them for the tea and tack on a tea tax. We'll use the proceeds to prop up the bottom line of the East India company and keep them out of bankruptcy. It'a win-win for everybody." Well, the tea got dumped in the water in Boston as you know. A few more incidents and the Brits decided to clamp down on those bratty folks from Massachusetts and Rhode Island in a heavy fisted way, expecting then that the other colonies would fall in line. Nope, that just unified all the colonies even more, shots were fired and war broke out. The rest is history as they say. Highly recommended.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love reading popular history, and I looked forward the opportunity to hear the "other" perspective on the American Revolutionary War, especially since I've always felt that most of what I've read on it has been unbalanced. I loved the beginning of the book with the background given, the discussion of the Gaspee Affair, etc.

However, as the book progressed, it stopped feeling as new and novel, and felt repetitive and dry. Every minute detail of every minor event was delved into. Lots of minor players were introduced in some detail. It just dragged on and on and on.

This book may be great for the more academic historian. But I felt it would have been significantly improved by being shortened from about 360 pages to under 300. And the style throughout much of the book could have been more engaging.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

While informative, the presentation was unnecessarily complicated to follow. There was simply too much piecemeal bouncing around from one person or group to another without adequate clarity. The comparisons to other historical events outside of this time period were jarring - what if the reader is not sufficiently familiar with the other historical event?

[Clay Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learned a lot on how the British started the American Revolution.

[Andy Dorsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Older historiography lionized the British Empire as a stunning and unparalleled achievement of human civilization ("The sun never sets..."). Modern historiography vilifies the supremacist British Empire as a major driving force behind the inequality that plagues our world today. Nick Bunker, on the other hand, asks a very intriguing question: can you even really call this an empire?

Bunker is, of course, talking about an earlier period in the empire's history, and makes it a point to distinguish between the late 18th century's proto-imperialism and the height of British imperial administration under Victoria a century later. Still, the question remains a fascinating one, and his answer -- it was perhaps technically an empire, but not in a way that was planned or even seriously viewed that way at the time -- provides such a fuller picture of the situation than those world maps you see where all former British colonies are marked in red.

From ministries that didn't share pertinent colonial information with each other, to a Parliament that went months or years without discussing any colonial matters, to a colonial department with only 10 actual staffers, Bunker paints the picture of a United Kingdom that didn't really know what it was doing with its overseas territories and didn't much seem to care, either. Or at least, as he argues convincingly, not until it was too late.

This book is refreshing for so many reasons. For one, we get the perspective of a British historian on a topic that is normally covered to death by enthusiastic (overly patriotic?) American historians. Surely other British historians have tackled the American Revolution, but what sets Bunker apart is his wry, honest approach. He does not pull his punches, boldly pointing out the limitations of vision that hampered British politicians' handling of the situation, and suggesting alternative courses of action that might have averted crisis. Yet he also tries his best to give these politicians the benefit of the doubt, ultimately arguing that they were human just like anybody else, unable to look beyond their own milieu. They were not idiots, they were not villains, they were just politicians who lived at a certain moment in time.

This is the next refreshing point. In discussions of the American Revolution, Britain is often presented as a monolith, a major force that the upstart Americans must overcome in order to escape overbearing tyranny. Yet as Bunker points out, the oppression of the American colonies was not carried out as part of a comprehensive scheme, but rather as a series of unfortunately-timed and ill-conceived reactive measures influenced by a wide variety of factors. As for Britain's great might, Bunker shows us that while certainly a force to be contended with, the British military was already stretched thin across the globe, subject to funding difficulties, and in a precarious relative position due to the UK's political isolation in Europe.

This wider perspective is another refreshing aspect of the book. There is something very nostalgic and homey about opposing New England's grassroots town meeting culture to George III's monarchistic tyranny, but it's only one part of a much bigger picture. Portside prostitution in China and famine in India aren't usually things you think of in conjunction with the American Revolution, and yet Bunker seamlessly weaves them into his tapestry of the tumult of the second half of the 18th century. With all the problems popping up at home and abroad in the early 1770s, it is no wonder that Parliament was too busy to notice the trouble brewing in America.

On a personal note, I found the book to drag a little bit toward the end, perhaps because the boldest claims are made in the first half. Nonetheless, I am not exaggerating when I say that this book fundamentally changed my view of the American Revolution. For years I was a historical reenactor presenting the Loyalist point of view (upholding the authority of the legitimate government over the complaints of some whining malcontents who actually had it better than the people in England). But after reading "An Empire on the Edge," I am convinced that breaking away was actually the right decision in that moment; the American colonies had no future in the British imperial system as it existed at that point in time. British claims of sovereignty over America were shaky at best, as the colonies had been founded under private initiative, and the British political presence was very light indeed (evidently just some governors of varying quality?).

It's not every book that can change your mind on who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are.