DOC The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Constitutionalism and Democracy) by David N. Mayer in History

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A fundamental component of Britain’s early success; naval impressment not only kept the Royal Navy afloat―it helped to make an empire. In total numbers; impressed seamen were second only to enslaved Africans as the largest group of forced laborers in the eighteenth century. In The Evil Necessity; Denver Brunsman describes in vivid detail the experience of impressment for Atlantic seafarers and their families. Brunsman reveals how forced service robbed approximately 250;000 mariners of their livelihoods; and; not infrequently; their lives; while also devastating Atlantic seaport communities and the loved ones who were left behind. Press gangs; consisting of a navy officer backed by sailors and occasionally local toughs; often used violence or the threat of violence to supply the skilled manpower necessary to establish and maintain British naval supremacy. Moreover; impressments helped to unite Britain and its Atlantic coastal territories in a common system of maritime defense unmatched by any other European empire. Drawing on ships’ logs; merchants’ papers; personal letters and diaries; as well as engravings; political texts; and sea ballads; Brunsman shows how ultimately the controversy over impressment contributed to the American Revolution and served as a leading cause of the War of 1812.Early American HistoriesWinner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Work of Scholarship in Eighteenth-Century Studies