DOC Liberty's Exiles: The Loss of America and the Remaking of the British Empire by Maya Jasanoff in History

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`More than just a work of first-class scholarship; Liberty's Exiles is a deeply moving masterpiece that fulfils the historian's most challenging ambition: to revivify past experience.' Niall FergusonLiberty's Exiles was shortlisted for the 2011 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize.Early in the afternoon of 25 November 1783; the American Revolution was finally over; the British were gone; the patriots were back and a key moment inscribed itself in the annals of the emerging United States. Territorial independence from Great Britain had effectively begun.In 'Liberty's Exiles'; Maya Jasanoff examines the realities of the end of the Revolution; through looking at the lives of the Loyalist refugees - those men and women who took Britain's side. She tells the story of Elizabeth Johnston from Savannah; whose family went on to settle in St Augustine; Scotland; Jamaica and Nova Scotia; Reverend Jacob Bailey; who fled from New England across rough seas to Canada with his family and little more than the clothes on his back; five-year-old Catherine Skinner - the daughter of a loyalist - who was trapped as a prisoner in her home; hiding from the gunshots of rebel raiders. Their experiences speak eloquently of a larger history of exile; mobility and the shaping of the British Empire in the wake of the American War.Beautifully written and rich with source material; 'Liberty's Exiles' is a history of the American Revolution unlike any before.