A fresh look at the American Revolution as a major global event   At the time of the American Revolution (1765–83), the British Empire had colonies in India, Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific, Canada, Ireland, and Gibraltar. The thirteen rebellious American colonies accounted for half of the total number of provinces in the British world in 1776. What of the loyal half? Why did some of Britain’s subjects feel so aggrieved that they wanted to establish a new system of government, while others did not rebel? In this authoritative history, Trevor Burnard and Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy show that understanding the long-term causes of the American Revolution requires a global view.   As much as it was an event in the history of the United States, the American Revolution was an imperial event produced by the upheavals of managing a far-flung set of imperial possessions during a turbulent period of reform. By looking beyond the familiar borders of the Revolution and considering colonies that did not rebel—Quebec, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, India, the British Caribbean, Senegal, and Ireland—Burnard and O’Shaughnessy go beyond the republican, liberal, and democratic aspects of the emerging American nation, providing a broader history that transcends what we think we know about the Revolution. “ Republic and Empire shows how a global perspective can yield fresh insight even on a topic as well-trodden as the American Revolution.”— New Criterion “Here is proof of one undeniable good achieved by the revolution: when it came to ‘the greatest curse that ever has afflicted the human race,’ it reawakened not only the American but the world’s conscience. Republic and Empire , in its unflinching way, carries on that tradition.”―Edward Short, Literary Review “An insightful history.”— Kirkus Reviews “An adroit shaping of a complex period.”―Jeremy Black, NYMAS Review “In this impressive distillation of a wide range of imperial scholarship, the authors present a compelling case for recognizing both the roots and the course of the American Revolution as profoundly influenced by events in the wider British Empire following its expansion in and immediately after the Seven Years’ War.”—Stephen Conway, University College London “The American Revolution was at once a civil war, a war of colonial liberation, and an imperial crisis. Viewing the conflict through empire’s eyes, O’Shaughnessy and Burnard reveal hidden connections and overlooked legacies that shaped the world of 1776 and continue to ramify around the globe.”—Jane Kamensky, Monticello “Timely, critically important contribution to our understanding of the American nation’s origins in a constitutional crisis and civil war that led half of Britain’s American colonies to declare independence. Balancing a welcome emphasis on the uncertain progress of the war with convincing accounts of why so many other colonies remained loyal, Burnard and O’Shaughnessy illuminate the contingent contexts that shaped individual and collective decisions in a revolutionary age.”—Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia “A masterful reappraisal of the American Revolution by two preeminent historians. Andrew O’Shaughnessy and the late Trevor Burnard brilliantly capture the duality at the heart of America’s founding: 1776 was both the beginning of a protracted imperial civil war and the birth of a democratic republic.”—Christa Dierksheide, author of Beyond Jefferson: The Hemingses, the Randolphs, and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America Trevor Burnard (1960–2024) was Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull and director of the Wilberforce Institute. He was the author of numerous books on Caribbean plantation history and imperial history and served as editor of the Oxford Bibliography Online in Atlantic History. Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy is professor of history at the University of Virginia. His books include An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean and the prizewinning The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire .