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

**A new British account of the Boston Tea Party and the origins of the American Revolution, showing how a lethal blend of politics, personalities and economics led to a war that few people welcomed but nobody could prevent.** In this powerful and even-handed narrative, Nick Bunker tells the story of three years of deepening anger that led to the outbreak of America's war for independence on Lexington Green in 1775. It was a tragedy of errors, in which both sides shared responsibility for a conflict that cost the lives of at least 20,000 Britons and a still larger number of Americans. At the heart of the book lies the Boston Tea Party. By the 1770s, Great Britain had become a nation addicted to financial speculation, led by an élite beset by internal rivalry and baffled by a changing world. When the East India Company came close to collapse, they patched together a rescue plan whose disastrous outcome was the destruction of the tea. With their lawyers... 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. From the Hardcover edition The story of the American Revolution told from the unique perspective of British Parliament and the streets of London, rather than that of the Colonies. Here, Nick Bunker explores and illuminates the dramatic chain of events that led to the outbreak of the war-revealing a tale of muddle, mistakes, and misunderstandings by men in London that led to the Boston tea party and then to the decision to send redcoats into action against the minutemen. Charting the three years prior to the war during which the British regime in America was already collapsing, Bunker shows how a lethal combination of politics and personalities led to a war that should never have been fought. Revisiting the tea party from the point of view of British economics and drawing upon new and unpublished sources from Britain and the U.S., he argues that thanks to the colonialists' misunderstandings about the strength of British power, and London's inability to take American cries for freedom seriously, both were pushed beyond the point of compromise. The outcome' A war that few welcomed but all were powerless to stop