When London Was Capital of America

Benjamin Franklin secretly loved London more than Philadelphia: it was simply the most exciting place to be in the British Empire. And in the decade before the outbreak of the American Revolution, thousands of his fellow colonists flocked to the Georgian city in its first big wave of American visitors. At the very point of political rupture, mother country and colonies were socially and culturally closer than ever before. In this first-ever portrait of eighteenth-century London as the capital of America, Julie Flavell recreates the famous city's heyday as the centre of an empire that encompassed North America and the West Indies. The momentous years before independence saw more colonial Americans than ever on London's streets: wealthy Southern plantation owners in quest of culture, slaves hoping for a chance of freedom, Yankee businessmen looking for opportunities in the city, even Ben Franklin seeking a second, more distinguished career. The stories of the colonials, no innocents abroad, vividly recreate a time when Americans saw London as their own and remind us of the complex, multiracial - at times even decadent - nature of America's colonial British heritage.

ISBN 0300178131   Pages 320 ISBN13 9780300178135 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 490 Publisher Yale University Press   Published in New Haven Imprint Yale University Press   Previous ISBN 9780300137392 Format Paperback   Height (mm) 226 Publication date 08 Nov 2011   Width (mm) 157 DEWEY 942.107   Spine width (mm) 18 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level General

"'Julie Flavell has produced not an account of the administration of the American colonies from London but something much more original... She reveals an extraordinary, almost forgotten world, rich with anecdote.' (Duncan Fallowell, Daily Express) 'An engaging social history, written with a novelist's eye for character and plot.' (Gaiutra Bahadur, The Observer) 'This is a fine, original book, and a jolly good read.' (Tim Richardson, Country Life) 'a well-researched and enjoyable book' (Leslie Mitchell, Literary Review)"

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