Boston Athenæum

October 7, 2014 at the Boston Athenæum. An Empire On The Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America is a new, British account of the Boston Tea Party and the origins of the American Revolution. It shows how a lethal blend of politics, personalities, and economics led to a war that few people welcomed but nobody could prevent. In his strong but even handed narrative, Nick Bunker tells the story of three years of deepening anger that led to the outbreak of America’s war for independence at Lexington in 1775. He claims the time as a tragedy of errors, during which both sides shared responsibility for a conflict that cost the lives of at least 20,000 Britons and a still larger number of Americans. At the heart of the book lies the Boston Tea Party. Using primary sources from both sides of the Atlantic, Bunker sheds new light on the Tea Party’s origins and the process of mutual embitterment by which Britain and America pushed each other into war.