The evil repercussions of the American Revolution

Book review of TO BEGIN THE WORLD OVER AGAIN-How the American Revolution Devastated the Globe

Thomas Paine’s aspiration for the revolutionaries of 1776 was “to begin the world over again” in America. In his colorful and ambitious new transnational history, Matthew Lockwood pays very little attention to that. He is interested in how the ripples caused by the American Revolution affected everywhere outside the modern United States. The narrative hops from Britain and Ireland to the Spanish Empire, Russia, India, Australia, Africa and China, with a glittering cast of historical characters, including Catherine the Great, Tupac Amaru II, Horatio Nelson, Tipu Sultan and the Qianlong Emperor.
 
Lockwood’s thesis in To Begin the World Over