The American War of Independence is one of my least favourite periods and I expect it’s the same for a lot of Englishmen. For a start, the wrong side lost. Also, it’s fiendishly complicated, what with all the Whigs, Tories, Loyalists, Patriots, Frenchmen, Indians, Militia, Virginians, Marylanders, Light Bobs, Fusiliers and Continentals biffing one another in a confusing melee. And there is the lurking suspicion that, as Michael Rose has recently argued, it has depressing things to tell us about the US’s (and her allies’) current involvement in Iraq.

Indeed, about the only thing that persuaded me to read a book on the subject is that it was written by Mark Urban. I have been a huge fan of his ever since reading The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes, an extraordinary true story as gripping as the Enigma one, but set in the Peninsular War.

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