Patriots Before Revolution: The Rise of Party Politics in the British Atlantic. 1714-1763 With Amy Watson

Eva Landsberg will interview Amy Watson about her new book, Patriots Before Revolution: The Rise of Party Politics in the British Atlantic, 1714-1763 (Yale University Press, 2025).

In Patriots Before Revolution, historian Amy Watson shows that the political label “Patriot” was first adopted by a network of British politicians with radical ideas about the principles and purpose of the British Empire. The early Patriots’ ideological mission was not American independence but, rather, imperial reform: Patriots sought to create a British Empire that was militant, expansionist, confederal, and free. Over the course of the eighteenth century, these reformers used print media and grassroots mobilization efforts to expand their party to North America, where Patriotism would have revolutionary implications in the decades to come. The interview will be followed by Q&A.

Amy Watson is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She earned a PhD from Yale University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California/Huntington Library, Early Modern Studies Institute. Her research has been supported by the Massachusetts Historical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, among others. Her other publications include articles in The William and Mary Quarterly and The Scottish Historical Review.