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An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. By Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy. Early American Studies. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c. 2000. Pp. [xviii], 357. Paper, $22.50, ISBN 0-8122-3558-4; cloth, $55.00, ISBN 0-8122-1732-2.)
Why did the British West Indies remain loyal during the American Revolution? According to Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, there were "fundamental differences between the island and mainland colonies" (p. xvi) that predisposed the former colonies to react differently to imperial reforms after 1763 and, when war came, to support British imperial rule. In emphasizing these fundamental differences, O'Shaughnessy maintains that "neither the threat of military coercion nor the physical impracticality of a revolt" (p. xvi) are sufficient to explain island loyalty, an interpretation that "conflicts with those of historians who stress the similarities between the mainland and island colonies," such as Jack P. Greene. O'Shaughnessy also maintains that island colonists never fomented any significant resistance to Parliamentary measures and were "divided over the mildest gestures of...