The Gun, the Ship and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World

The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen is a global history of remarkable depth, imagination, and insight by Colley, who demonstrates how constitutions evolved in tandem with warfare and have functioned to advance empire and promote nations. It is one of the most original global histories in decades.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 512 pages
Publication date: 03 February 2022
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd

If there were a Nobel Prize in History, Colley would be my nominee. Jill Lepore, a New Yorker, is one of the most exciting historians of her generation, but also one of the most interesting writers of non-fiction around. - William Dalrymple, Guardian Colley takes you on intellectual journeys you wouldn't think to take on your own, and when you arrive, you wonder why you never did it before. - David Aaronovitch, the Times A global history of remarkable depth, imagination, and insight. Tony Barber, Financial Times Summer Books Starting not with the United States, but with the Corsican constitution of 1755, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen moves through every continent, disrupting accepted narratives. Both monarchs and radicals play a role, from Catherine the Great of Russia, with her remarkable Nakaz, to Sierra Leone's James Africanus Horton, to Tunisia's Khayr-al-Din, a creator of the first modern Islamic constitution. Throughout, Colley demonstrates how constitutions evolved in tandem with warfare, and how they have functioned to advance empire as well as promote nations, and worked to exclude as well as liberate. Whether reinterpreting Japan's momentous 1889 constitution, or exploring the significance of the first constitution to enfranchise all adult women on Pitcairn Island in the Pacific in 1838, this is one of the most original global histories in decades.

Weight: 400g
Dimension: 130 x 197 x 35 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781846684982
Edition number: Main