Amy Watson is publishing her first book on the British origins of the Patriot movement in the US.
Patriots sought to create a British Empire that was militant, expansionist, confederal and free.
Amy Watson's book, Patriots Before Revolution
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is preparing to publish her first book which examines the British political origins of the Patriot movement that inspired the American Revolution.
Patriots Before Revolution: The Rise of Party Politics in the British Atlantic, 1714-1763 by Amy Watson [2010] will be published later this month by Yale University Press. It is a new history of the Patriot movement before the American Revolution, tracing its origins to reform movements in British politics. #
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. The book shows that the early Patriots’ ideological mission was not American independence but, rather, imperial reform. “Patriots sought to create a British Empire that was militant, expansionist, confederal and free,” according to the book.
Watson, who did an MPhil at Cambridge in Early Modern History and is assistant professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, studies the early modern British Empire, focusing in particular on partisan politics and the transatlantic origins of the American Revolution. As well as Gates Cambridge, her research has been supported by the Early Modern Studies Institute at the University of Southern California, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Huntington Library, among others.
*To pre-order her book, go to: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300263213/patriots-before-revolution/
**Picture credit: Oil painting of George Washington’s inauguration as the first President of the United States which took place on April 30, 1789, courtesy of Ramon de Elorriaga and Wikimedia Commons. Words by Gael Vidal-Garner.
