Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes was published by Grafton in 1990. Hibbert approaches the American Revolution as a British historian writing for a British audience — a perspective that is rarer than it should be in a conflict that has generated one of the largest historiographies in the English language. The result is a narrative that looks unfamiliar to American readers: the heroes are not always heroic, the villains are not always villainous, and the outcome is not the providential triumph of liberty but the consequence of specific political and military decisions that could have gone differently.
Hibbert’s British perspective illuminates aspects of the conflict that American accounts typically obscure: the genuine political debate in Parliament about colonial policy (not all British politicians were tyrants; many sympathized with American grievances); the military challenges of fighting a war across three thousand miles of ocean with an army that was too small and a navy that was overstretched; and the role of European powers (particularly France) in turning a colonial rebellion into a strategic catastrophe for Britain.
The narrative is organized around the military campaigns — Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Yorktown — but Hibbert gives equal weight to the political dimension: George III’s stubborn determination, Lord North’s hapless management, and the parliamentary opposition’s increasingly vocal criticism of a war that was costing more in blood and treasure than any reasonable assessment of colonial value could justify.
Collecting Redcoats and Rebels
First edition (Grafton, London, 1990): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good/very good: $8–$20