Britain and France at the Birth of America
The European Powers and the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83
Distributed for Liverpool University Press
256 pages
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illustrated
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9-3/10 x 6-1/5
This is the first comprehensive study of the peace negotiations which ended the American War of Independence. It challenges traditional views and uses a wide range of sources to provide a detailed analysis of the treaties signed between Britain and France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States. It shows that American independence, rather than being the important issue of the negotiations, was consistently subordinated to European balance of power considerations.
The book demonstrates the importance of personality and popular prejudice in determining foreign policy, and new insights are offered into the personalities and objectives of the leading political figures of the time, including George III, Louis XVI, Benjamin Franklin, Lords Shelburne, Grantham and North, Charles James Fox, the comte de Vergennes, John Jay, John Adams, Catherine the Great and Frederick the Great. The result is a significant new study of eighteenth-century diplomatic and political history which overturns previously established views.
The British Journal for Eighteen-Century Studies
“This splendidly produced volume from one of Britain’s newer academic publishers needs to be set in the historiographical context of its subject, one much written about from varying national viewpoints . . . The merits of this book by Andrew Stockley are that he incorporates recent scholarship; adds new material of his own; notes the impact of internal politics in Britain and France; and, above all, as his title suggests, puts the whole topic in a European rather than American setting . . . an excellent synthesis of a complicated topic, leavened with fresh material and marked by an original approach.” –The British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 25.1, Spring issue
Choice
“Highly recommended for all college libraries.” –Choice, Vol. 39, No. 6, Feb 2002
The International History Review
“The specialist will find much to enjoy and benefit from, especially the analysis of the construction of a viable British foreign policy towards the American colonies and their European allies.” –The International History Review, Vol. 24:1, March 2002
For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
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History: American History
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