{"product_id":"empire-ablaze","title":"Empire Ablaze: The American Revolution and the Atlantic Working Class","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn 1776, while Britain wages war on American rebels, one man sets out to bring the empire down from within\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs revolution raged in North America, James Aitken – house painter, highwayman, and escaped indentured servant – wandered the colonies formulating a dramatic plan to cripple the British navy by destroying Portsmouth dockyard and Bristol harbour. He was determined to burn down the empire to hasten American independence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough this overlooked story of British insurrection and America’s founding, historian Tom Cutterham explores how an emerging transatlantic working class experienced the transformation and crisis of Britain’s eighteenth-century empire. Behind this new sense of class consciousness was the Enlightenment philosophy that had informed popular ideas about the universal rights and the corruption of imperial authorities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReframing the American Revolution as a British civil war, \u003ci\u003eEmpire Ablaze \u003c\/i\u003eoffers a fresh account of the United States’ birth and the origins of radical politics in Britain, finding insights for the revolutionary struggles of our own crisis-ridden times.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTom Cutterham \u003c\/b\u003eis an associate professor of United States history at the University of Birmingham, and the author of \u003ci\u003eGentlemen Revolutionaries: Power and Justice in the New American Republic\u003c\/i\u003e. He has written for \u003ci\u003eJacobin\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNation\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eNew Republic\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as a handful of scholarly journals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat People Are Saying\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Passionate, provocative, and deeply humane, Cutterham's urgent reinterpretation of the American Revolution restores sabotage, solidarity, and working-class dreams to the center of a world-changing upheaval.\" Richard Bell, author of \u003cem\u003eThe American Revolution and the Fate of the World\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Tom Cutterham uses the picaresque life of arsonist James Aitken to tell a ripping good yarn about labor, class, radical ideas, and the American revolution. A vivid and well-researched transatlantic history from below.\" Marcus Rediker, co-author of \u003cem\u003eThe Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In this beautifully-written gem of a book Tom Cutterham tells the story of James Aitken, a Scot who sought to sabotage the Royal Navy in Portsmouth in the name of American independence. In so doing Cutterham makes a larger argument about class and the roles played common people, like Aitken, in making a new, revolutionary, world. In Cutterham's hands James Aitken emerges as a subject worthy of Broadway musical or a Netflix series. The 250th anniversary of US Independence will see the publication of many books on the American Revolution. Empire Ablaze stands out from the crowd and deserves the widest possible audience.\" Frank Cogliano, Professor of American History, University of Edinburgh\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44590653112413,"sku":"9781836741459","price":33.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0562\/0826\/1213\/files\/EmpireAblaze.jpg?v=1783798606","url":"https:\/\/leftwingbooks.net\/fr\/products\/empire-ablaze","provider":"Leftwingbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}