Maya Jasanoff's Exiles Summary

The American Revolution was a cathartic event in world history. What we might not have realized until now was the extensive transformations it begun in the British Empire. Maya Jasanoff’s Liberty’s Exiles: The Loss of America and the Remaking of the British Empire, argues that the revolution and the subsequent exile of more than 60,000 individuals from American soil to the far reaches of British domains transformed political culture, social dynamics, and even imperial forms of administration. This colonial diaspora and the catharsis of the Revolution had a widespread unexpected legacy that Jasanoff labeled as “the spirit of 1783.” One of the main arguments of the book is that this ideal guided the restructuration of the British Empire with …show more content…
She presents the confrontation as a civil war whose final conclusion was not reached by the treaty of Paris in 1783 but by the aftermath of the War of 1812. She disqualifies the views that its consequences were only ideological by insisting that the clash was “more than a war of ideals, but a war of ordeals” (p.23). She also scrutinizes political cultures and identities with a detailed explanation of what led to the loyalists’ decision of standing with the crown instead of joining the rebellion. Her use of sources, which vary from diaries, journals, and periodicals, to official archives in three distinct continents, illustrates the violence, despair, trials and tribulations of many individuals. Their personal experiences allow the reader to glance at the opportunities and tragedies of war and displacement, along with the difficult choices they had to take. Jasanoff is a critical and inquiring historian. However, if there is an instance where she does not delve into the full complexity of the problem of choices and decisions is with the case of slaves who were part of the loyalist