- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati History Prize, Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey
Finalist, George Washington Prize
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2015
Generations of students have been taught that the American Revolution was a revolt against royal tyranny. In this revisionist account, Eric Nelson argues that a great many of our "founding fathers" saw themselves as rebels against the British Parliament, not the Crown. The Royalist Revolution interprets the patriot campaign of the 1770s as an insurrection in favor of royal powerādriven by the conviction that the Lords and Commons had usurped the just prerogatives of the monarch.
"The Royalist Revolution is a thought-provoking book, and Nelson is to be commended for reviving discussion of the complex ideology of the American Revolution. He reminds us that there was a spectrum of opinion even among the most ardent patriots and a deep British influence on the political institutions of the new country."
āAndrew O'Shaughnessy, Wall Street Journal
"A scrupulous archaeology of American revolutionary thought."
āThomas Meaney, The Nation
"A powerful double-barrelled challenge to historiographical orthodoxy."
āColin Kidd, London Review of Books
"[A] brilliant and provocative analysis of the American Revolution."
āJohn Brewer, New York Review of Books
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Introduction: āThe War of Parliamentā
- 1. Patriot Royalism: The Stuart Monarchy and the Turn to Prerogative, 1768ā1775
- 2. āOne Step Farther, and We Are Got Back to Where We Set Out From": Patriots and the Royalist Theory of Representation
- 3. āThe Lord Alone Shall Be King of Americaā: 1776, Common Sense, and the Republican Turn
- 4. āThe Old Government, as Near as Possibleā: Royalism in the Wilderness, 1776ā1780
- 5. āAll Know That a Single Magistrate Is Not a Kingā: Royalism and the Constitution of 1787
- Conclusion: āA New Monarchy in Americaā
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index