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Title details for The Men Who Lost America by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy - Available

The Men Who Lost America

British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire

by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy
Gildart Jackson
Audiobook
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The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing book makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men who directed the British dimension of the war, historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory.


In interlinked biographical chapters, the author follows the course of the war from the perspectives of King George III, Prime Minister Lord North, military leaders including General Burgoyne, the Earl of Sandwich, and others who, for the most part, led ably and even brilliantly. Victories were frequent, and in fact the British conquered every American city at some stage of the Revolutionary War. Yet roiling political complexities at home, combined with the fervency of the fighting Americans, proved fatal to the British war effort. The book concludes with a penetrating assessment of the years after Yorktown, when the British achieved victories against the French and Spanish, thereby keeping intact what remained of the British Empire.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 11, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781452697529
      • File size: 607632 KB
      • Duration: 21:05:53

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      O'Shaughnessy approaches Revolutionary War history from an interesting angle. This is a series of biographies of British military and political leaders, which bring out details most non-historians won't know. Gildart Jackson has a slightly brassy narrating voice with an easy and professional expressiveness and sense of pacing. He gives colonists a modern American accent that's a little strained but mostly convincing. It's hard to say what they really sounded like, but he surely errs in giving an American accent to the British Thomas Paine. He enlivens the presentation by emoting whenever he has the chance, and by assigning the various figures distinctive speaking voices. The history is interesting and the reading vigorous and generally polished, a solid combination. W.M. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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