Tom Cutterham

Empire Ablaze tells the story of James Aitken—housepainter, highwayman, and escaped indentured servant—as he wandered the colonies on the eve of the American Revolution, and his dramatic mission to cripple the British navy by destroying Portsmouth dockyard and Bristol harbour. In the process, it explores how an emerging transatlantic working class experienced the transformation and crisis of Britain’s eighteenth-century empire,...