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    The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire
    The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire
    The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire
    Audiobook21 hours

    The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire

    Written by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy

    Narrated by Gildart Jackson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook


    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 11, 2013
    ISBN9781452687520

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    Reviews for The Men Who Lost America

    4/5

    7 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Although this collection of biographical sketches does not serve as an introductory history of the late unpleasantness of the 1700s, it does the advertised job of giving the reader an insight into the motivations of the British leadership as they struggled to hold Britain's North American empire together, never quite comprehending until it was too late that a sea change had occurred in the collective political consciousness of Thirteen Colonies in the wake of the Seven Years War and that the old lines of authority were untenable. I found the chapters dealing with high-ranking civilian officials such as North, Germaine and Sandwich to be particularly useful, as they found themselves waging an essentially unlimited war with limited resources.
    • 4/5
      The details ,which is not widely known or talked about, gives a much more sobering picture to both sides of the Atlantic and how precarious the situation really was for all involved and how the situation could have turned a different ending so easily. It also shows the Achilles heel for all humans, pride and ego.
    • 3/5
      Good for the British viewpoint of the American revolution, and for concise biographies of the British players, from the king and cabinet ministers to the military commanders.