Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Britain and the American Dream (1740–1776)
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Peter Moore is a writer, journalist and lecturer in creative writing at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Damn His Blood; New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year' The Weather Experiment; Sunday Times bestseller Endeavour; and Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness. From 2019 to 2023, he presented the history podcast Travels Through Time. His latest book is A Life on the Edge, a new biography of Thomas Cochrane.<b>[An] absorbing book...</b> Moore has a <b>keen eye for the sort of eloquent detail</b> that enlivens biography, and he <b>expertly </b>evokes Franklin's transformation from proud artisan to member of a new American elite. He's particularly good on the quirkiness of Franklin's early adulthood . . . <b>Moore [is] a crisp writer and adept at narrative sweep</b>
- Henry Hitchings, The Times
[An] <b>engaging and thoroughly reader-friendly book</b>...<b> </b>[<i>Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness</i>] is about how a crazed, paranoid kind of political rhetoric was spread from the England of Wilkes to the America of Franklin and Paine, making rebellion possible. This part of the story is not just convincing but, to a modern reader, <b>positively chilling</b>
- Noel Malcolm, Telegraph
In his <b>engaging narrative history</b> Peter Moore argues that Jefferson's celebrated words provide the key to understanding... a vibrant, enlightened Anglo-American culture of the eighteenth century
- T.H. Breen, TLS
A timely reminder that the origins of the three big ideas in the American Dream lay mainly in Great Britain, with a lively account of the principal actors and episodes in the developing drama, and Benjamin Franklin in the starring role: <b>a great read</b>
LADY HALE
With <b>deft insights</b> and in <b>clear prose</b>, Moore restores the cosmopolitan origins of an American Revolution meant to liberate human potential. In this <b>eloquent </b>book, that revolution becomes more global and enduring and less parochial and limited
ALAN TAYLOR, Pulitzer Prize winning author of American Revolutions
Building on the pioneering work of Bernard Bailyn and John Brewer, <b>Peter Moore offers a gripping account</b> of the way in which British pamphlet wars of the 1760s fuelled American debates about independence. Mixing famous Founders with lesser known figures, especially Franklin's long-time friend the Tory printer and publisher William Strahan, <b>Moore's book brings out the hidden roots of the Declaration of Independence</b>
STELLA TILLYARD, author of The Great Level
<b>Rollicking... </b>The book's <b>compulsive readability</b> is a tribute to Moore's skill at cracking open the pre-revolutionary period and reanimating the contingencies that eventually drove the settlers to embrace independence. Can be read as a refutation of originalism, or the contention that we should still live in a world governed by the putative beliefs of the Founding Fathers
Washington Post
History is best written by the losers. In <i>Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness</i>, Peter Moore... shows how Britain exported its highest ideals to the Americans who rejected it
- Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal
Moore offers a <b>rich and immersive</b> intellectual history of the American Revolution... <b>This is a pleasure</b>
Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
Like Jenny Uglow's <i>The Lunar Men </i>and Leo Damrosch's <i>The Club</i>, Moore's <b>vibrant </b>group biography brings to life the intellectual and political currents, in Britain and Colonial America, that gave rise to the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,"... <b>An energetic and meticulously researched history</b>
Kirkus (starred review)
Tracing this 'American Dream' through the writings of such <b>English contemporaries</b> as Samuel Johnson, Thomas Paine, the historian Catharine Macaulay, and the politician John Wilkes, Moore reminds us that the<b> ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence are by no means bounded to our shores</b>
New Criterion
The <b>vivid </b>descriptions of people, modes of communication, and social life are fascinating and give this <b>well-researched history the readability of fiction</b>
Booklist (starred review)
With <b>flair and insight</b>, Peter Moore takes one of the most famous and deceptively simple lines in history - a line that founded a nation and changed the world. He digs into it, to unearth a wealth of unexpected influences and connections, a trove of gripping stories, and a vibrant company of characters. <b>A wonderfully absorbing and stimulating book</b>
SARAH BAKEWELL, author of At The Existentialist Cafe
What a <b>scintillating read</b>. Atmospheric yet analytical, well-paced yet deeply probing, Moore's book delivers striking new perspectives with the stylistic grace of the Founding Fathers. <b>I loved it</b>
DAISY DUNN, author of Not Far From Brideshead
The British empire of the eighteenth century blazed with the world-changing ideas and projects of thinkers and writers... <b>Peter Moore captures this intellectual ferment in a fascinating narrative</b>
ROBERT A. GROSS, author of The Minutemen and Their World
In bringing five participants <b>vividly </b>to life, Moore gives us a <b>warmly human account</b> of the birth of American democracy. How pleasing that deep scholarship can be so <b>enjoyable and thought-awaking</b>
MARTIN LATHAM, author of The Bookseller's Tale
<i>Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness</i> is that <b>rarest </b>of things: an ambitious history of ideas that is also <b>deeply intimate and humane</b>. Peter Moore has an eye for the kind of<b> sparking detail that drags you into the past by the shirt collar</b>. A work of<b> astonishing insight, pathos, and literary elegance</b>
JOSEPH HONE, author of The Paper Chase
<b>In prose as fluid and engaging as Jefferson's own,</b> Peter Moore reveals how cherished American ideals originated not from the end of one Founding Father's pen but through conversations across the Atlantic between men and women thinking and writing about how to make the world a better place
Kathleen DuVal, author of Independence Lost
<b>Deft, engaging and vivid,</b> <i>Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness</i> explores a vibrant, surprising and sometimes extraordinary period of history. <b>Moore writes with such humanity and verve - I loved it</b>
LUCY ATKINS, author of Magpie Lane
[A] <b>thrilling and expansive</b> narrative
MIKE JAY, author of Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic
Bestselling historian Peter Moore traces how Enlightenment ideas were exported from Britain and put into practice in America - where they became the most successful export of all time, the American Dream
'Absorbing... fascinating... eloquent' THE TIMES
'Engaging and thoroughly reader-friendly' TELEGRAPH
'Wonderfully absorbing and stimulating' SARAH BAKEWELL
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is frequently evoked today as shorthand for the American Dream. But this is a line with a surprising history. Rather than being uniquely American, the vision it encapsulates – of a free and happy world – owes a great deal to British thinkers too.
Centred on the life of Benjamin Franklin, featuring figures like the cultural giant Samuel Johnson, the groundbreaking historian Catharine Macaulay, the firebrand politician and revolutionary activist Thomas Paine, this book looks at the generation that preceded the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It takes us back to a vital moment in the foundation of the West and tells a whole new story about the birth of the United States of America – and some of the key principles by which we live to this day.
'Deft insights and in clear prose' ALAN TAYLOR
'A gripping account' STELLA TILLYARD
'Rollicking...compulsive readability' WASHINGTON POST
'A great read' LADY HALE