By placing the War of 1812 in a global context, Troy Bickham narrates America's bid for postcolonial sovereignty and Britain's attempt to block it, a conflict that put the fate of North America and Britain's global supremacy on the line.
When students gathered in a London coffeehouse and smoked tobacco; when Yorkshire women sipped sugar-infused tea; or when a Glasgow family ate a bowl of Indian curry, were they aware of the mechanisms of imperial rule and trade that made such goods readily available? In Eating the Empire, Troy Bickham unfolds the extraordinary role that food played in shaping Britain during the long eighteenth century (circa 1660–1837), when such foreign goods as coffee, tea, and sugar went from rare luxuries to some of the most ubiquitous commodities in Britain—reaching even the poorest and remotest of households. Bickham reveals how trade in the empire’s edibles underpinned the emerging consumer economy, fomenting the rise of modern retailing, visual advertising, and consumer credit, and, via taxes, financed the military and civil bureaucracy that secured, governed, and spread the British Empire.
Savages within the Empire explores how Britons perceived and represented American Indians during a time when the empire and its constituent peoples began to capture the nation's sustained attention for the first time. Troy Bickham considers an array of contexts,including newspapers, imperial policy, museum exhibits, the Enlightenment, missionary records, and the public outcry over the use of American Indians as allies during the American War of Independence. He thusreveals the prevailing pragmatism with which Britons of all ranks approached the empire as well as its impact on British culture.
Long before it was the site of shopping centers, corporate headquarters, and universities, Troy was a humble pioneer settlement comprised of farms and small knots of buildings at simple crossroads known as Troy Corners, Big Beaver, and Halsey Corners. School bells, church socials, and harvesting seasons punctuated the simple country lives of early Troy residents. The establishment of the Detroit United Railway in 1898 brought new opportunities to Troy settlers, rattling up Livernois daily and transporting passengers, milk, and freight between Flint and Detroit. By the end of World War II, Troy was rapidly changing. Subdivisions replaced farms, the township was incorporated as the City of Troy, and gracious homes and new businesses quickly replaced the clusters of clapboard structures. This book utilizes the remarkable resources of the Troy Historical Society and the Troy Museum & Historic Village to document and celebrate Troys development over the course of two centuries.
The rain began to fall on Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913. In Troy, 15 people lost their lives during the flood due to drowning, and in the weeks and months that followed an unknown number died from flood-related diseases. The story of what happened in Troy has often been overlooked, but in 1976 the Troy Historical Society Oral History Committee interviewed Troy flood survivors as a project for the bicentennial of the United States. These interviews, preserved on audiotapes, provide researchers firsthand accounts of what happened in the town. The late Mrs. Lois Shilling Davies, a past president of the Troy Historical Society who lived in Troy during the flood, deserves much of the credit for this invaluable resource, for it is she who conducted many of the interviews. Images of America: Troy and the Great Flood of 1913 relates how residents endured without having any instruction or experience in emergency preparedness. This is a celebration of human bravery, kindness, and ingenuity—of people who triumphed over tragedy.
Long before it was the site of shopping centers, corporate headquarters, and universities, Troy was a humble pioneer settlement comprised of farms and small knots of buildings at simple crossroads known as Troy Corners, Big Beaver, and Halsey Corners. School bells, church socials, and harvesting seasons punctuated the simple country lives of early Troy residents. The establishment of the Detroit United Railway in 1898 brought new opportunities to Troy settlers, rattling up Livernois daily and transporting passengers, milk, and freight between Flint and Detroit. By the end of World War II, Troy was rapidly changing. Subdivisions replaced farms, the township was incorporated as the City of Troy, and gracious homes and new businesses quickly replaced the clusters of clapboard structures. This book utilizes the remarkable resources of the Troy Historical Society and the Troy Museum & Historic Village to document and celebrate Troy's development over the course of two centuries.
In early 1815, Secretary of State James Monroe reviewed the treaty with Britain that would end the War of 1812. The United States Navy was blockaded in port; much of the army had not been paid for nearly a year; the capital had been burned. The treaty offered an unexpected escape from disaster. Yet it incensed Monroe, for the name of Great Britain and its negotiators consistently appeared before those of the United States. "The United States have acquired a certain rank amongst nations, which is due to their population and political importance," he brazenly scolded the British diplomat who conveyed the treaty, "and they do not stand in the same situation as at former periods." Monroe had a point, writes Troy Bickham. In The Weight of Vengeance, Bickham provides a provocative new account of America's forgotten war, underscoring its significance for both sides by placing it in global context. The Napoleonic Wars profoundly disrupted the global order, from India to Haiti to New Orleans. Spain's power slipped, allowing the United States to target the Floridas; the Haitian slave revolt contributed to the Louisiana Purchase; fears that Britain would ally with Tecumseh and disrupt the American northwest led to a pre-emptive strike on his people in 1811. This shifting balance of power provided the United States with the opportunity to challenge Britain's dominance of the Atlantic world. And it was an important conflict for Britain as well. Powerful elements in the British Empire so feared the rise of its former colonies that the British government sought to use the War of 1812 to curtail America's increasing maritime power and its aggressive territorial expansion. And by late 1814, Britain had more men under arms in North America than it had in the Peninsular War against Napoleon, with the war with America costing about as much as its huge subsidies to European allies. Troy Bickham has given us an authoritative, lucidly written global account that transforms our understanding of this pivotal war.
In 1720s London, a well-known band of young ruffians gave themselves crescent tattoos and adorned turbans in honour of their so-called 'mohamattan [Muslim]' Indian namesakes, the Mohawk. Few Britons noticed the gang's mistaken muddling of North American and Indian subcontinent geographies and cultures. Even fewer cared in an age in which 'Indian' was a catch-all term applied to theatre characters, philosophies, and objects whose only common characteristic often was that they were not European. Yet just thirty years later, when the North American empire had entered centre stage, Londoners bought Iroquois tomahawks at auctions; provincial newspapers debated Cherokee politics; women shopkeepers read aloud newspaper accounts of frontier battles as their husbands counted the takings; church congregations listened to the sermons of American Indian converts; families toured museum exhibits of American Indian artefacts; and Oxford dons wagered their bottles of port on the outcome of American wars. Focusing on the question, 'How did the British who remained in Britain perceive American Indians, and how did these perceptions reflect and affect British culture?', Savages within the Empire explores both how Britons engaged with the peripheries of their Atlantic empire without leaving home, and, equally important, how their forged understanding significantly affected the British and their rapidly expanding world. It draws from a wide range of evidence to consider an array of eighteenth-century contexts, including material culture, print culture, imperial government policy, the Church of England's missionary endeavours, the Scottish Enlightenment, and the public outcry over the use of American Indians as allies during the American War of Independence. By chronicling and exploring discussions and representations of American Indians in these contexts, Troy Bickham reveals the proliferation of empire-related subjects in eighteenth-century British culture as well as the prevailing pragmatism with which Britons approached them.
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