I recently needed to look up a quote from a British politician in the House of Commons during the American Revolutionary War. I went to my personal library (like to call it a study but since I have not found a desk to “study” on in there, I’ll continue to call it my library).
I grabbed Don Cook’s book The Long Fuse, How England Lost the American Colonies. A great read about the opposing side in the American Revolution. I found what I needed, but, as many of you probably do, that took me down a reading tangent.
Disclaimer; those of us under stay-at-home orders have some additional free time to explore more of our personal libraries. Those who can relate know what I am talking about. You pick up a book looking for something specific, which leads you to finish that book, then find one in the same genre or another micro-study of the same topic, until you have consumed multiple tomes within a matter of days, weeks.
Cook’s book led me to The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. I gained a different appreciation for King George III, Lord Frederick North, and other British leaders from their perspective, filling in the gaps of historical scholarship that more America-centric volumes do not have the word count or inclination to fill.
I then went deeper down the proverbial rabbit-hole. Delving into With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783, I went on a reading campaign with the British in the colonies.
Which now leads me to this blog post, what else would you recommend? What are your go-to books on the British perspective in the American Revolution?
Side note, I may delve into the loyalist viewpoint histories next, as I came across an interesting fact; the largest diaspora in the 18th century was American citizens that chose loyalty to the British crown who left or were forced to evacuate during and after the end of the American Revolution. So, as any history enthusiast will do, I will do more research….reading I mean.
Most people with an interest in the American Revolutionary War have heard of the Boston Massacre, in which Captain Thomas Preston of the 29th Regiment of Foot, commanding a contingent of British soldiers, fired into a crowd, or a mob depending on one’s point of view, harassing/threatening a guard outside the Customs House. Both sides in the growing dispute between Britain and its colonies rapidly turned the event, which occurred 250 years ago, to their political ends. Several books have been written about the massacre and tried to sort fact from propaganda, at least in the context of revolutionary Boston. In their latest book, John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father’s Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial, Dan Abrams and David Fisher tackle the trials of Captain Preston and his soldiers that followed. 
I’m sure the men who’d embarked on the 1779 Sullivan-Clinton Campaign weren’t traveling along New York’s Southern Tier Expressway as they moved through the lands of the Iroquois Confederation. In the “Tory-Indian Town of Painted Post,” I’m sure members of the expedition didn’t decide on a detour down U.S. Rt. 15 south toward the Pennsylvania state line.
Emerging Revolutionary War Era 