The Gun, the Ship and the Pen

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Starting not with the United States, but with the Corsican constitution of 1755, this book moves through every continent, disrupting accepted narratives. Both monarchs and radicals play a role, from Catherine the Great of Russia, with her remarkable Nakaz, to Sierra Leone's James Africanus Horton, to Tunisia's Khayr-al-Din, a creator of the first modern Islamic constitution. Throughout, Colley demonstrates how constitutions evolved in tandem with warfare, and how they have functioned to advance empire as well as promote nations, and worked to exclude as well as liberate. Linda Colley reinterprets Japan's momentous 1889 constitution, and also explores the significance of the first constitution to enfranchise all adult women on Pitcairn Island in the Pacific in 1838