Narrating this broad history, Susan Ericksen combines respect for the author’s work with the tone and phrasing needed to make listening enjoyable. Ericksen’s slow enunciation is fitting but will challenge some listeners’ ability to track the ideas in longer sentences. But with her grasp of the author’s intentions never in doubt, the work holds together with satisfying coherence. Tracing the global spread of constitutions from 1750 to the present, British historian Linda Colley shows how these foundational documents were needed by emerging nations to secure the rights of men so they would agree to be taxed and sent to war on land and sea. Her smooth writing shows how cultural and literary trends shaped constitutions, and how colorful leaders helped them spread across six continents. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World
Narrated by Susan Ericksen
Linda ColleyUnabridged — 17 hours, 12 minutes
The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World
Narrated by Susan Ericksen
Linda ColleyUnabridged — 17 hours, 12 minutes
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Overview
She brings to the fore neglected sites, such as Corsica, with its pioneering constitution of 1755, and tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the first place on the globe permanently to enfranchise women. She highlights the role of unexpected players, such as Catherine the Great of Russia, who was experimenting with constitutional techniques with her enlightened Nakaz decades before the Founding Fathers framed the American constitution. Written constitutions are usually examined in relation to individual states, but Colley focuses on how they crossed boundaries, spreading into six continents by 1918 and aiding the rise of empires as well as nations. She also illumines their place not simply in law and politics but also in wider cultural histories, and their intimate connections with print, literary creativity, and the rise of the novel.
Editorial Reviews
02/08/2021
Constitutions were not just records of political change and consolidation but historical objects and agents in their own right, according to this probing study. Princeton historian Colley (The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh) surveys dozens of constitutions from the 18th through the 20th centuries, including the 1755 constitution written by Corsican independence leader Pasquale Paoli, the 1889 Japanese constitution, and the 1838 constitution of Pitcairn Island (settled in 1790 by nine HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions), one of the first charters to grant women the vote. Colley attributes the spread of constitutions to the rising scale and cost of trans-oceanic warfare, which led to crises that required governments to concede rights and political participation to their subjects. Print culture then spread the “new constitutional technology” around the world to inspire reformers—the 1790s, the author notes, saw a craze for amateur constitution-writing—and serve as sacred texts dissidents could rally around in their battles against oppressive states. Copiously researched and elegantly written, Colley’s treatise goes beyond the usual Anglo-American focus of constitutional history to show the global impact of the constitutionalist movement. The result is a fresh and illuminating take on these still-living documents. Photos. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management. (Mar.)
"One of our most imaginative and relevant historians... Colley takes you on intellectual journeys you wouldn’t think to take on your own."
"Linda Colley’s historical expeditions are often inspiring... revealing new, deeper ways of understanding."
"[A] terrific new global history of constitutions.... [of] many captivating stories.... Colley has produced a brilliant world history. The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is a compelling and stylish corrective to any notion that constitutions are a somnolent backwater devoid of drama and historical significance."
"No one can accuse Linda Colley of shying away from big subjects. This one is as big as they come — nothing less than an exploration of the origin of written constitutions.... The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is a remarkable feat of scholarship on an international scale.... [There are] many insights in this impressive book."
"Fascinating and important... Colley’s wide-ranging survey covers many aspects of the global impact of constitutions, from the crucial importance of printers and publishers, to Thomas Paine’s interest in putting political and legal concepts on paper, to Toussaint Louverture defying the French in 1801 and publishing his own constitution for a future Black-ruled Haiti... This carefully crafted exploration shows how constitutions have helped to bring about an extraordinary revolution in human behavior, ideas and beliefs over the years. Though constitutions are flawed, Colley writes, 'in an imperfect, uncertain, shifting, and violent world, they may be the best we can hope for.'"
"If there were a Nobel Prize in History, Colley would be my nominee… An incandescent, paradigm-shifting new book."
"A helpful contribution to this growing field.... Colley’s work echoes that of the great scholar of nationalism, Benedict Anderson.... Interestingly, Colley shows that early constitutions were not simply the result of demands from below.... The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen has important lessons for anyone interested in political development today."
"In Linda Colley's new book, constitutions fizzle with the energy of war, navigation and power.... She avoids the idea that these documents are gifted to the people by elites.... This fascinating global history shows that while constitutions are surrounded by an ocean of competing interests and violence, read together they tell a tale of how interconnected the story of political hope has always been."
"As a piece of historical thinking, argument and writing, it is magisterial by every criterion, the most impressive outcome, thus far, of what has already been a career of great creativity. It is a measure, equally, of how the discipline of history has changed over the past twenty years."
"Dazzling.... Colley conducts a vivid worldwide tour of 'a contagious political genre'.... The result is one of the most enthralling, illuminating and inspiring works of global history in decades.... The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen proves that the history of constitutions is too important to be left to constitutional lawyers. This is a big book in every sense: vast in scope, broad in ambition, and rich in stories, convergences and insights."
"Colley writes with such elegance and verve that the journey, and the characters it involves, are always fascinatingly worthwhile. This is an original global history that adds to readers’ understanding of the world they live in..... The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is an ambitiously wide-ranging account of the forces that propelled the writing of constitutions – documents that have defined the modern world – from the middle of the 18th century to today."
"A wide-ranging, beautifully written global history... Colley’s narrative is rich, and she emphasizes the colorful characters who have contributed to constitution-making projects around the world."
"[A] dazzling global history... pulling away the blinkers of national stories, widening the focus, and showing—as the current pandemic has done—how interconnected all our lives and interests are... Bold... Abounds with subtle arguments grounded in expertly marshaled sources, generously acknowledged. But perhaps the book's most impressive aspect is its mobility, felt not only in the fluid narratives but in the movement of constitutional ideas themselves."
10/01/2020
Wolfson Prize winner Colley's chronicle retells modern history from the perspective of the constitutions drafted over the last three centuries by rulers from Catherine the Great to Tunisian soldier-constitutionalist Khayr al-Din, also embracing the first constitution to enfranchise women, for Pitcairn Island in 1838.
Narrating this broad history, Susan Ericksen combines respect for the author’s work with the tone and phrasing needed to make listening enjoyable. Ericksen’s slow enunciation is fitting but will challenge some listeners’ ability to track the ideas in longer sentences. But with her grasp of the author’s intentions never in doubt, the work holds together with satisfying coherence. Tracing the global spread of constitutions from 1750 to the present, British historian Linda Colley shows how these foundational documents were needed by emerging nations to secure the rights of men so they would agree to be taxed and sent to war on land and sea. Her smooth writing shows how cultural and literary trends shaped constitutions, and how colorful leaders helped them spread across six continents. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2021-02-10
A sprawling global history, beginning in the 1750s, showing the incalculable impact of the drafting of written constitutions.
In this wildly ambitious, prodigiously researched work, Princeton history professor Colley, a winner of the Wolfson History Prize, traces how the proliferation of written constitutions coalesced with the rise of hybrid warfare—land and sea—thus protecting the rights of those who were soldiering as well as those affected by violent invasions. Aside from the Magna Carta, signed in 1215, written documents delineating the rights and duties of “citizens” were rare until the Enlightenment, when literacy increased across Europe and philosophers such as Montesquieu popularized ideas of political liberty and separation of powers. Even among monarchs like Russia’s Catherine the Great—who wrote and published the extensive Nakaz, or Grand Instruction, in 1767, modernizing the codes and laws of Russia—the era spawned countless paper documents that addressed complex matters of law, politics, and even literature and philosophy. Though occasionally unfocused, the narrative ranges widely and fascinatingly across continents and prominent historical figures, from Pasquale Paoli in Corsica to Simón Bolívar in South America to George Washington in the nascent U.S. In Europe, the constitution-writing frenzy hit its apex during the Napoleonic era. Especially groundbreaking is Colley’s study of the written documents of non-European nations—e.g., Haiti—and in far-flung locales like the South Pacific island of Pitcairn (thanks to a Scottish captain, the islanders adopted a true democracy in 1838, enfranchising both men and women). The author’s subchapter entitled “Why Were Women Left Out?” proves immensely elucidating. As Colley shows, many constitutions, such as the state of New Jersey’s, originally recognized the participation of women before excluding them. Because many of these documents were “deployed to offer recompense for adequate supplies of manpower, they tended to lay stress on what was viewed as a uniquely masculine contribution to the state, namely, armed service.”
A sweeping, unique, truly world-spanning political and military history.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940176050226 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HighBridge Company |
| Publication date: | 05/18/2021 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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