这篇关于波士顿茶党和美国革命起源的新文章以一种全新的视角撰写，展示了政治、个性和经济的致命融合如何导致了一场鲜有人欢迎但无人能阻止的战争。
英国作家尼克·邦克（Nick Bunker）在这篇有力但公正的叙述中讲述了1775年美国独立战争爆发前的最后三年相互怨恨的故事。这是一场错误的悲剧，双方都要为一场冲突承担责任，这场冲突导致至少两万英国人和更多美国人丧生。英国人和殖民者没有看到他们向暴力方向漂移的速度有多快，直到这一过程已经超过了无法回头的地步。
这本书的核心是波士顿茶党（Boston Tea Party），这一事件源于英国管理其事务的根本缺陷。到了17世纪70年代初，英国已经成为一个沉迷于金融投机的国家，由一个饱受内部竞争困扰、对不断变化的世界越来越困惑的政治精英领导。当这家东印度公司濒临倒闭时，它拼凑了一个救援计划，其灾难性的副作用是破坏了茶叶。
伦敦的律师称茶党是叛国，议会中的鹰派人士呼吁复仇，英国人选择了惩罚性报复，却没有预见到他们会激起什么抵抗。就美国人而言，他们低估了英国不让步的决心。到1774年夏末，当新英格兰的叛军开始武装自己时，陷入战争已经不可逆转。
通过仔细研究英国和美国的原始资料，《边缘帝国》为茶党的起源以及本杰明·富兰克林、约翰·汉考克和托马斯·哈钦森等熟悉人物的角色提供了新的线索。这本书展示了国王的首席大臣诺思勋爵如何发现自己被赶下了流血之路。站在他身边的是殖民地秘书达特茅斯勋爵，他是一位以仁慈著称的福音派基督徒。在一个充满痛苦讽刺的故事中，也许最悲哀的是：热爱和平的达特茅斯不得不写一份派遣英国军队出战的短文。
An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America
Written from a strikingly fresh perspective, this new account of the Boston Tea Party and the origins of the American Revolution shows how a lethal blend of politics, personalities, and economics led to a war that few people welcomed but nobody could prevent.
In this powerful but fair-minded narrative, British author Nick Bunker tells the story of the last three years of mutual embitterment that preceded the outbreak of America’s war for independence in 1775. It was a tragedy of errors, in which both sides shared responsibility for a conflict that cost the lives of at least twenty thousand Britons and a still larger number of Americans. The British and the colonists failed to see how swiftly they were drifting toward violence until the process had gone beyond the point of no return.
At the heart of the book lies the Boston Tea Party, an event that arose from fundamental flaws in the way the British managed their affairs. By the early 1770s, Great Britain had become a nation addicted to financial speculation, led by a political elite beset by internal rivalry and increasingly baffled by a changing world. When the East India Company came close to collapse, it patched together a rescue plan whose disastrous side effect was the destruction of the tea.
With lawyers in London calling the Tea Party treason, and with hawks in Parliament crying out for revenge, the British opted for punitive reprisals without foreseeing the resistance they would arouse. For their part, Americans underestimated Britain’s determination not to give way. By the late summer of 1774, when the rebels in New England began to arm themselves, the descent into war had become irreversible.
Drawing on careful study of primary sources from Britain and the United States, An Empire on the Edge sheds new light on the Tea Party’s origins and on the roles of such familiar characters as Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Hutchinson. The book shows how the king’s chief minister, Lord North, found himself driven down the road to bloodshed. At his side was Lord Dartmouth, the colonial secretary, an evangelical Christian renowned for his benevolence. In a story filled with painful ironies, perhaps the saddest was this: that Dartmouth, a man who loved peace, had to write the dispatch that sent the British army out to fight.
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