The Story
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An explosive, deeply revisionist work that reveals how a renegade English Duke and Thomas Paine, the firebrand polemicist, almost brought the American Revolution to Britain.
When Danielle Allen unearthed a parchment of the Declaration of Independence buried away in Sussex, England, little did she know that she had discovered a story of historical magnitude that would alter our understanding of British and American history. Revealing that the Age of Revolution began earlier than we thought―not with the Boston patriots nor with the Parisian Jacobins, but in Britain itself―Allen demonstrates in Radical Duke that the rights of man, the theory of revolution, and calls for popular sovereignty all emerged from the radical energies of London before they spread across the Atlantic and the Channel.
Throughout Radical Duke, Allen sets the record straight. Through archival evidence, confirmed with computational tools, she reveals the anonymous authors of the inflammatory Junius letters; she also identifies a new Paine work, his first book, The Juryman’s Touchstone, cowritten in 1771. In the end, the Duke swerved. He did not advocate the overthrow of the monarchy but remained loyal to both Crown and people, launching an age of reform. With her penetrating prose, Allen resuscitates a seminal political figure who has been egregiously neglected throughout history.
- 464 pages
- Hardcover
Description
* PRE-ORDER - SHIPS JUNE 15TH *
An explosive, deeply revisionist work that reveals how a renegade English Duke and Thomas Paine, the firebrand polemicist, almost brought the American Revolution to Britain.
When Danielle Allen unearthed a parchment of the Declaration of Independence buried away in Sussex, England, little did she know that she had discovered a story of historical magnitude that would alter our understanding of British and American history. Revealing that the Age of Revolution began earlier than we thought―not with the Boston patriots nor with the Parisian Jacobins, but in Britain itself―Allen demonstrates in Radical Duke that the rights of man, the theory of revolution, and calls for popular sovereignty all emerged from the radical energies of London before they spread across the Atlantic and the Channel.
Throughout Radical Duke, Allen sets the record straight. Through archival evidence, confirmed with computational tools, she reveals the anonymous authors of the inflammatory Junius letters; she also identifies a new Paine work, his first book, The Juryman’s Touchstone, cowritten in 1771. In the end, the Duke swerved. He did not advocate the overthrow of the monarchy but remained loyal to both Crown and people, launching an age of reform. With her penetrating prose, Allen resuscitates a seminal political figure who has been egregiously neglected throughout history.
- 464 pages
- Hardcover
