The Expanding Blaze

A major intellectual history of the American Revolution and its influence on later revolutions in Europe and the Americas

The Expanding Blaze is a sweeping history of how the American Revolution inspired revolutions throughout Europe and the Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jonathan Israel, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment, shows how the radical ideas of American founders such as Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe set the pattern for democratic revolutions, movements, and constitutions in France, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Greece, Canada, Haiti, Brazil, and Spanish America.

The Expanding Blaze reminds us that the American Revolution was an astonishingly radical event--and that it didn't end with the transformation and independence of America. Rather, the Revolution continued to reverberate in Europe and the Americas for the next three-quarters of a century. This comprehensive history of the Revolution's international influence traces how American efforts to implement Radical Enlightenment ideas--including the destruction of the old regime and the promotion of democratic republicanism, self-government, and liberty--helped drive revolutions abroad, as foreign leaders explicitly followed the American example and espoused American democratic values.

The first major new intellectual history of the age of democratic revolution in decades, The Expanding Blaze returns the American Revolution to its global context.

" A major intellectual history of the American Revolution and its influence on later revolutions in Europe and the Americas, the Expanding Blaze is a sweeping history of how the American Revolution inspired revolutions throughout Europe and the Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jonathan Israel, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment, shows how the radical ideas of American founders such as Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe set the pattern for democratic revolutions, movements, and constitutions in France, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Greece, Canada, Haiti, Brazil, and Spanish America. The Expanding Blaze reminds us that the American Revolution was an astonishingly radical event--and that it didn't end with the transformation and independence of America. Rather, the revolution continued to reverberate in Europe and the Americas for the next three-quarters of a century. This comprehensive history of the revolution's international influence traces how American efforts to implement Radical Enlightenment ideas--including the destruction of the old regime and the promotion of democratic republicanism, self-government, and liberty--helped drive revolutions abroad, as foreign leaders explicitly followed the American example and espoused American democratic values. The first major new intellectual history of the age of democratic revolution in decades, The Expanding Blaze returns the American Revolution to its global context."--
The Expanding Blaze is studded with interesting facts. . . . An important, necessary and convincing argument overall.---Elizabeth Cobbs, Times Higher Education
The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World 1775-1848 offers a full blast of Israel from its very first page.---Catherine O'Donnell, Journal of Southern History
Honorable Mention for the 2018 PROSE Award in U.S. History, Association of American Publishers
One of Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2017 in American History
A fascinating global look at how the American Revolution didn't simply conclude with the independence of 13 colonies from Great Britain, and the creation of the United States of America. . . . The author offers a compelling overview of how the American Revolution impacted on the rest of the world well into the 19th century and beyond.-- "American Magazine"
An impressively broad scholarly history whose readability and smooth organization make it a joy to read.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
Stoutly makes the case that the American Revolution was 'of immense consequence for America's future and for the rest of globe.' Though not a new argument, it has never before been made so fully or with such convincing force. . . . Like Israel's previous books, this bravura, complex, learned interpretation of 75 years of revolutionary history is sure to stir debate.-- "Publishers Weekly"
This book's wide-angle account of the nineteenth-century spread of revolutionary democratic ideals makes it impossible to see the American founding as simply a national event; it was, in reality, nothing less than a battle of ideas played out on a global stage.---G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs