Imaginary Friendship in the American Revolution - John Adams and Jonathan Sewall

Imaginary Friendship is the first in-depth study of the onset of the American Revolution through the prism of friendship, focusing on future US president John Adams and leading Loyalist Jonathan Sewall. The book is part biography, revealing how they shaped each other's progress, and part political history, exploring their intriguing dangerous quest to clean up colonial politics. Literary history examines the personal dimension of discourse, resolving how Adams's presumption of Sewall's authorship of the Loyalist tracts Massachusettensis influenced his own magnum opus, Novanglus. The mystery is not why Adams presumed Sewall was his adversary in 1775 but why he was impelled to answer him.

List of contents

Prologue: History 1. Friendship 2. John and Jonathan 3. Politics 4. The King’s Law 5. Imagining Revolution 6. Massachusettensis and Novanglus 7. Debate 8. The British Question 9. Revolution. Epilogue: War and Reunion

About the author

Colin Nicolson is Lecturer in History at the University of Stirling.
Owen Dudley Edwards is an Irish historian and former Reader in Commonwealth and American History at the University of Edinburgh.

Summary

This book is a microhistory of how friendship operated in the American Revolution. It explores the friendship of two political adversaries whose careers coincided with and were shaped by the escalating imperial crisis of 1760-75: the Patriot and future US president John Adams and the prominent Loyalist Jonathan Sewall.

Product details

• Authors: Owen Dudley Edwards, Colin Nicolson, Colin (University of Stirling Nicolson, Colin Dudley Edwards Nicolson, Nicolson Colin
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.11.2018
• EAN: 9781138703827
• ISBN: 978-1-138-70382-7
• No. of pages: 224
• Series: Perspectives on Early America
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; USA, HISTORY / General, HISTORY / Modern / 18th Century, HISTORY / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), Historiography, History of the Americas, Early modern warfare (including gunpowder warfare), Modern Period, C 1500 Onwards, American War of Independence, HISTORY / Revolutions, Uprisings & Rebellions, Specific wars and military campaigns