The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen (Hardback)
Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World
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Award-winning historian Linda Colley shows the dawn of the modern world - through the advance of written constitutions
'If there were a Nobel Prize in History, Colley would be my nominee'
Jill Lepore, New Yorker
'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 that you never did it before' - David Aaronovitch, the Times
'A different, surprising twist on international history' - Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
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.
The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen (Ebook)
Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World
Buy from
Award-winning historian Linda Colley shows the dawn of the modern world - through the advance of written constitutions
'If there were a Nobel Prize in History, Colley would be my nominee'
Jill Lepore, New Yorker
'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 that you never did it before' - David Aaronovitch, the Times
'A different, surprising twist on international history' - Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
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.
Reviews for The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen
Jill Lepore New Yorker
William Dalrymple Guardian
R. F. Foster
Maya Jasanoff, Harvard University
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, author of Europe’s India, Words, People, Empires, 1500–1800
Alan Mikhail, author of God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World
Alan Taylor, author of Thomas Jefferson's Education
Mary Bilder, author of Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention
M’hamed Oualdi, Sciences Po, Paris
David Aaronovitch the Times
Dominic Sandbrook Sunday Times
Kirkus Reviews
Jonathan Sumption Spectator