Review Of Nick Bunker's An Empire On The Edge

One of the most common problems with literature on the history of how America came to be is that it is limited to an American point of view. An Empire on the Edge, written by Nick Bunker delivers a new perspective, a British perspective, on how Britain came to fight America. His work is ambitious in that it seeks to explain a well known story in a completely unheard of way, yet he does it remarkably and with intense examination. In reviewing this book, Bunker goes into great detail about how The Gaspee incident was an important catalyst for war as well as Great Britain’s inability to control it people, in England and America. This book caters to the historian in all of us, plunging each reader back into the 1700’s where it all began. From
Although the Boston Tea Party is an important incident in history, Bunker makes the argument that The Gaspee affair was actually what tipped the scales towards war. Even Lord North reacted more intensely with the people of Rhode Island, who were acting as pirates at the Gaspee incident, than he did with the people of Boston dressed up as Mohawks at the Boston Tea Party. Bunker stated that, “when the British tried to eradicate the smuggling trade, the Americans rose up in arms, and that, said Mr. Stedman, was how the revolution began.”(53) The merchant class of the Rhode Island colony devised and carried out the argument for rebellion with the attack, seizure, and burning of the British customs schooner, that was engaged in the anti-smuggling campaign, The Gaspee. This attack made the Rhode Island colony the first colony to openly revolt. The people of Rhode Island such as the Brown brother’s and Stephen Hopkins wrote correspondences that revealed their intentions as clear as day. When the news of the destruction of the Gaspee eventually reached London by ship, the people of England’s reactions were that of utter horror and dismay for what was to come and the officer’s reactions mirrored that of the publics. Even Thomas Jefferson listed the Gaspee affair, “among the worst examples of imperial oppression.”(113) Although the Gaspee incident is not as familiar like the
England had far more pressing crisis than the budding crisis that was the New World. Bunker put it best when he said, “distracted by so many other issues, the British failed to see just how fragile their position was in North America.”(25) In textbooks and stories of how Britain came to fight America, people hear of how the colonists were trying to work it out with the Crown and how the Crown was simply being a tyrant or just ignoring the colonists wishes. But thats just one side of the story. A much larger piece of the story is unveiled when we hear about the juggling act going on across the ocean. The colonists were unhappy and had made that very clear in their correspondences, yet they were brushed aside while the Crown dealt with what seemed like more important issues. After the Seven Years War with France, England was in the business of finding allies incase the Bourbon powers wanted to try their hand with England again in another war. Unfortunately, the availability of allies was scarce. Even with the Russian Empress, Catherine the Great. Here Britain was, with the possibilities of war with France and America and they, “have not a single friendly power.”(96) On top of all that, Britain was broke. They had grown to quickly, peddled too much tea and then they were left with IOU’s and a bankrupt East India Company. Lord Hillsborough proposed that England use the colonies like they should be used. In his eyes,