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

The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen : Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World
ISBN: 9781846684975
Publication Date: 11 March 2021

Award-winning historian Linda Colley shows the dawn of the modern world - through the advance of written constitutions.

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.

About the Author

Linda Colley is Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University and a Fellow of the British Academy. Among her seven books, are the award-winning Britons: Forging the Nation, the highly-acclaimed The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History, and Acts of Union and Disunion for Profile, which was based on a 15-part BBC Radio series.