About

Join us at Books on the Rise as we are joined by Dr Tom Cutterham to talk about Empire Ablaze part of the How We Lost America Project

About Empire Ablaze:

In 1776, while Britain wages war on American rebels, one man sets out to bring the empire down from within

As revolution raged in North America, James Aitken – house painter, highwayman, and escaped indentured servant – wandered the colonies formulating a dramatic plan to cripple the British navy by destroying Portsmouth dockyard and Bristol harbour. He was determined to burn down the empire to hasten American independence.

Through this overlooked story of British insurrection and America's founding, historian Tom Cutterham explores how an emerging transatlantic working class experienced the transformation and crisis of Britain's eighteenth-century empire. Behind this new sense of class consciousness was the Enlightenment philosophy that had informed popular ideas about the universal rights and the corruption of imperial authorities.

Reframing the American Revolution as a British civil war, Empire Ablaze offers a fresh account of the United States' birth and the origins of radical politics in Britain, finding insights for the revolutionary struggles of our own crisis-ridden times.

About Dr Tom Cutterham

Dr Tom Cutterham is an associate professor of United States history at the University of Birmingham, and the author of Gentlemen Revolutionaries: Power and Justice in the New American Republic. He has written for Jacobin, the Nation, and the New Republic, as well as a handful of scholarly journals.

How We Lost America Exhibition

To mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, How We Lost America will move in August to Books on the Rise from Benjamin Franklin House.

This new exhibition explores the dawn of American Independence through a British lens. Drawing on contemporary satire, newspapers, pamphlets and little-known letters, it reveals how the American Revolutionary War was experienced on both sides of the Atlantic and examines the lasting impact of the revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality.

Alongside familiar historical figures, the exhibition uncovers lesser-known stories that challenge traditional narratives of the Revolution, including female revolutionaries, enslaved soldiers who fought for their freedom, and the dramatic arson attack on Portsmouth Harbour that brought the conflict directly to British shores.

By exploring these hidden histories, "How We Lost America" considers how revolutionary ideas transformed the modern world, established democratic precedents, and continue to shape political debate today.