An account of the struggle between Great Britain and its American colonies in the mid-18th century that culminated in the War of Independence. The book asserts that the American Revolution was brought about not simply by a squabble over taxation without representation but by a much larger struggle - the struggle for power between a risen and a rising nation. Allowing the leading statesmen - such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Robert Walpole - to speak in their own words, Draper overturns long-held assumptions about the origins of revolution.