{"product_id":"empire-ablaze","title":"Empire Ablaze","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn 1776, while Britain wages war on American rebels, one man sets out to bring the empire down from within\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThrough 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReframing the American Revolution as a British civil war, \u003ci\u003eEmpire Ablaze \u003c\/i\u003eoffers 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":54058995515760,"sku":"9781836741459","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0954\/1304\/3568\/files\/imageloader_57ba5a0b-9f87-4a9a-95fc-b04f0b748be4.jpg?v=1784694200","url":"https:\/\/aveson.store\/products\/empire-ablaze","provider":"Aveson","version":"1.0","type":"link"}