Description
Book SynopsisThe War for American Independence was essentially a civil war throughout the colonies: loyalists and patriots who had grown up together as countrymen found themselves fighting on opposing sides. Troy Bickham asserts that the war proved almost as divisive in the motherland, as the British wielded the almighty pen and went to battle on the pages of the press in Britain. Surpassing the breadth of previous studies on the subject, Making Headlines offers a look at the British press as a wholeincluding analysis of London newspapers, provincial newspapers, and monthly magazines.
The free press in Britain, Bickham argues, was too widespread and too lucrative to be susceptible to significant government interference and therefore provided in-depth coverage on all aspects of the war. Private letters, official dispatches, extracts from foreign newspapers, maps, and detailed tables of fleet strengths and locations filled the pages of daily publications that provided more extensive a
Trade Review
Making Headlines is an important work, both for newspaper history and for the history of the American Revolution. Based on wide-ranging research, it ably probes the material in a significant uncovering of the public politics of the crisis.
-- Jeremy Black, University of Exeter
An important contribution to the literature. The scholarship is sound... the work is original.
-- Eliga H. Gould, University of New Hampshire
Table of ContentsTable of Contents
List of Tables and Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Part I. The British Press in the Era of the American Revolution
1. Distribution, Organization, and Readership
2. Politics and the Press
Part II. From Insurrection to World War
3. Crisis and Conflict before Independence
4. The American War
5. The Global War
6. The War that Britain Won and Winning the Peace
Part III. A Transatlantic Civil War
7. The Unlikely Hero: George Washington's Transatlantic Appeal
8. The Controversy of Conducting the War: African Slaves, American Indians, and German Mercenaries
9. Allies or Foes, Republic or Anarchy? Divining America's Future
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
