Revolution Against Empire

Taxes, Politics, and the Origins of American Independence

Justin du Rivage

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780300227659
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

A bold transatlantic history of American independence revealing that 1776 was about far more than taxation without representation

Revolution Against Empire sets the story of American independence within a long and fierce clash over the political and economic future of the British Empire. Justin du Rivage traces this decades-long debate, which pitted neighbors and countrymen against one another, from the War of Austrian Succession to the end of the American Revolution.

As people from Boston to Bengal grappled with the growing burdens of imperial rivalry and fantastically expensive warfare, some argued that austerity and new colonial revenue were urgently needed to rescue Britain from unsustainable taxes and debts. Others insisted that Britain ought to treat its colonies as relative equals and promote their prosperity. Drawing from archival research in the United States, Britain, and France, this book shows how disputes over taxation, public debt, and inequality sparked the American Revolution—and reshaped the British Empire.

Justin du Rivage received his Ph.D. from Yale and previously taught early American history at Stanford.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Key Figures
• Introduction Enlightened Empire?
• 1. Britain’s Controversial Empire
• 2. Taxing America
• 3. The Seven Years’ War and the Politics of Empire
• 4. The Rise and Fall of the Stamp Act
• 5. Britain’s Authoritarian Ascendancy
• 6. Sons of Liberty, Sons of Licentiousness
• 7. English Blood by English Hands
• Conclusion
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Index