British America

The American revolutionaries—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams—called themselves Patriots. But what exactly did it mean to be a Patriot? Historian Amy Watson locates the origins of Patriotism in British politics of the early eighteenth century, showing that the label "Patriot" was first adopted by a network of British politicians with radical ideas about the principles and purpose of the British Empire.

Matthew Dunn uses his experience as a former MI6 field officer to bring transfixing realism to Slingshot, his third Spycatcher novel featuring Will Cochrane—MI6’s, and now the CIA’s, most prized asset and deadliest weapon. In Slingshot, Cochrane is ordered to recover a mysterious document...

Introduction by Colm Tóibín One of the final masterpieces from one of the world’s greatest authors, Henry James’s The Ambassadors is now available for the first time in a Modern Library edition, with a new Introduction by acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín. A keenly observed tale of a...

Brought to you by Penguin. We all want to know what on earth is going on. Why real wages are flatlining but taxes are rising, and public services are still collapsing. Why our children can’t afford a house and our neighbours are using foodbanks. We are all yearning for a way out of the...

On November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain believed his ship was off course, and he feared there was not enough drinking water to last until landfall. This book is the first to examine in detail the deplorable killings on the Zong, the lawsuit that ensued, how the murder of 132 slaves affected debates about slavery, and the way we remember the infamous Zong today.

Discover the real story of the Pilgrims, the courageous band of freedom-seekers who set out for a new life for themselves and forever changed the course of history. See how their journey laid the bedrock for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the American identity. Once a year at...

From the award-winning author of The Day I Died and The Lucky One, a captivating suspense novel about nurses during World War II who come to Agatha Christie’s holiday estate to care for evacuated children, but when a body is discovered nearby, the idyllic setting becomes host to a deadly...

The Revolutionary War is often celebrated as marking the birth of American republicanism, liberty, and representative democracy. Yet for the tens of thousands of British and Hessian troops sent 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to wage war under alien skies, such a progressive picture, as Vaughn Scribner reveals, could not have been further from the truth. In Under Alien Skies, Scribner illustrates how foreign soldiers' negative perceptions of the American environment merged with harsh wartime realities to elicit considerable physical, mental, and emotional anguish.

World domination is a vision most kings, queens, and emperors can only dream of. The only one to ever come close to this impossible level of prestige is none other than the legendary British Empire. Today, the British Army is one of the most powerful fighting forces in the world. Naturally, the history and traditions behind this army are also impressive. Its soldiers once created and defended a global empire, and during the Second World War, it was one of the leading nations standing against the brutal Axis forces, leading the way in the greatest seaborne invasion in military history.

“Stanfill has persuasively re-imagined the Middle Ages, surrounding the legendary Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine with indelible characters in an immersive tale of intrigue, bravery, ruthlessness, and compassion. . . . The Falcon’s Eyes is a dazzling adventure, with riveting twists and turns and...

The majority of Jewish immigrants who made their way to the United States between 1820 and 1924 arrived nearly penniless; yet today their descendants stand out as exceptionally successful. How can we explain their dramatic economic ascent? Have Jews been successful because of cultural factors distinct to them as a group, or because of the particular circumstances that they encountered in America?

Spanning 400 years, Drax of Drax Hall is a story of a plantation owning dynasty that has never been told. It all started when James Drax, one of the first settlers in Barbados in 1627, founded the British sugar industry. His descendants went on to write the book on how to run a slave plantation. For more than two hundred years, the family enslaved up to 330 people at any time and became enormously rich.

In The Idea of Europe and the Origins of the American Revolution, Dan Robinson presents a new history of politics in colonial America and the imperial crisis, tracing how ideas of Europe and Europeanness shaped British-American political culture. Reconstructing colonial debates about the European states system, European civilization, and Britain's position within both, Robinson shows how these concerns informed colonial attitudes towards American identity and America's place inside - and, ultimately, outside - the emerging British Empire.

On the eve of World War I, a band of Indian immigrants living in the United States hatched an audacious plan to liberate their homeland from British colonial rule. Founded by a group of student radicals at UC Berkeley, the Ghadar Movement mounted one of the most significant challenges to the British Raj before the rise of the Indian National Congress under Gandhi—but unlike the INC, the Ghadar Movement advocated for a violent insurrection against colonial rule.

This groundbreaking audiobook offers a new analysis of the British Army during the "American rebellion" at both operational and tactical levels. Presenting fresh insights into the speed of British tactical movements, Spring discloses how the system for training the army prior to 1775 was overhauled and adapted to the peculiar conditions confronting it in North America.

Four centuries ago, and 14 years before the Mayflower, a group of men - led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric, and a government spy - left London aboard a fleet of three ships to start a new life in America. They arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1607 and set about trying to create a settlement on a tiny island in the James River.

Jules Drinkwater’s Empire’s Last Brew takes you on a wild journey through the dramatic and tumultuous eras where tea and coffee were far more than mere drinks—they were symbols of power, rebellion, and cultural identity. Each chapter reveals the intense confrontations and hidden intrigues that defined a pivotal period, from the American colonies’ uprising against British tyranny to the revolutionary fervor that percolated in European societies.

“The most dramatic account so far of the extraordinary expeience of slaves in and after the American Revolution. . . . Schama’s gift for plunging us into the very center of the action makes reading an exhilarating and often moving experience.”—Daily Telegraph If you were black in America...

Paper Moon meets the Blitz in this original black comedy, set in World War II England, chronicling an unlikely alliance between a small time con artist and a young orphan evacuee. When Noel Bostock—aged ten, no family—is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a...

The ideals of freedom and individual rights that inspired America's Founding Fathers did not spring from a vacuum. Along with many other defining principles of our national character, they can be traced directly back to one of the most pivotal events in British history: the late-17th-century uprising known as the Glorious Revolution.