The American Revolution was one of the great political upheavals of the 18th Century, during which the people of the Thirteen American Colonies overthrew the authority of Great Britain and founded the United States of America.

In this book Claude H. Van Tyne describes the revolution as a ‘civil war’ and situates the quest for independence within the contemporary political milieu, defining both the agitator and the loyalist on both sides of the Atlantic by their political, social and ideological characteristics.

In his first chapter, Van Tyne stresses the need for a revision of the ‘traditional’ view of the revolution, as a just rebellion against a brutally tyrannical king. But the author does not side with either cause, instead providing a wide range of documentation from both the colonies and the motherland, painting a detailed picture of the contemporary mood.

In the proceeding ‘lectures’ Van Tyne explores the affect on the war of various camps, first looking at the merchant classes, then the influence of religion in the Puritan and Anglican churches, the work of lawyers, then the armies, before examining the courting of the European states by American and English diplomats.

England and America: Rivals in American Revolution is an engaging study which, to this day, proves a refreshing take on the human aspects of the revolution and its causes.

First delivered as a series of lectures given to British academics in 1927, this book takes a fascinating look at the various ways in which both the American and English people opposed, or furthered the cause of American independence.

Claude H. Van Tyne (1869-1930) was an American historian, he finished his B.A. degree at the age of twenty-seven before studying in Leipzig, Heidelberg, and Paris. He finished his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and taught at the University of Michigan for almost thirty years. He specialised in the study of the American Revolution and wrote several books on the subject, winning the Pulitzer Prize for The War of Independence in 1930. He died the same year at the age of sixty-one.

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