Reviews of Books

For Britain, the War of American Independence (as it is styled in British parlance) was two partially distinct conflicts. The first was the colonial rebellion with which Americans today are most familiar. But Britain also fought the war as a worldwide struggle that, from 1778 onward, forced it to contend with the combined power of France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Unlike the initial conflict in North America, the wider war threatened Britain itself with invasion. It also compelled the king's forces to wage war around the globe, fighting in India, the Mediterranean, and the West Indies. In 1775, Lord North promised a quick, relatively painless victory over the upstart Americans. By the war's end, a greater proportion of the British and Irish people were under arms than in any of Britain's previous military engagements.	1
As Stephen Conway demonstrates in his impressive new book, The British Isles and the War of American Independence, the domestic impact of this mobilization--in Ireland as well as mainland Britain--was deep and lasting. In nine topical chapters, Conway surveys the war's principal effects at home, including the government's apparently insatiable appetite for military recruits, the acute economic pain caused by the disruption of foreign markets, the demand for political autonomy the American Revolution stirred in Ireland, and the growing disillusionment in Britain proper with the existing system of representation in the House of Commons. In each of these areas, Conway maintains, the war intruded on the lives of ordinary men and women in ways that "have not been fully appreciated by historians" (p. 346). Taking issue with Piers Mackesy's memorable contention that Britain fought the War of American Independence as a limited conflict--"the last great war of the ancien régime" (The War for America, 1775–1783 [London, 1964], 4)--he suggests that Britain's domestic war effort had far more in common with the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France. In a nod to Linda Colley's Britons (New Haven, 1992), Conway argues that one consequence was to produce a clearer sense of British unity. This sense of unity was apparent even in Ireland, where "Catholic expressions of loyalty" during the war's early years "contrasted sharply with the rebelliousness of the king's Protestant subjects across the Atlantic" (p. 184).	2
Conway marshals a formidable array of evidence to support these claims. To judge from the bibliography, he seems to have visited every relevant archive in North America, Ireland, and Scotland as well as numerous English and Welsh repositories. The result is a book that blends high political analysis of the first order with a keen eye for social history and local context. A particular strength is his inclusion of six local studies: Glasgow, Scotland, Strabane, Ireland, and Hull, Lichfield, Brentwood, and Berkshire in England. Given the divergent character of these localities, Conway concludes that the war meant widely different things in different parts of the British Isles; however, each case confirms, albeit in varied ways, the war's profound impact. "Even in sleepy and genteel Lichfield," writes Conway, "the war intruded, bringing forth expressions of loyalty to the government, bell-ringing to celebrate British victories, and complaints about military overcrowding" (p. 314).	3
Based on deep and comprehensive research, Conway's book is certain to become required reading for historians of eighteenth-century Britain and the American Revolution. By casting such a wide net, Conway also supplies an important geographic corrective to earlier studies, most of which are limited to England and pay disproportionate attention to the North ministry's political opponents. The inclusion of Ireland is especially welcome. Because Ireland was an independent kingdom until the Union of 1800, Conway is well aware of the potential pitfalls of bringing it into what is, essentially, a British history; "the case for excluding Ireland," he writes in the introduction, "is in some senses a strong one" (p. 7). However, many of the issues that vexed British politics during the American Revolution--parliamentary reform, military mobilization, toleration of Catholics and Protestant dissenters--also beset Ireland, and Conway rightly concludes that the brief for inclusion is even stronger.	. . .