Middlekauff begins his account of the American Revolution well before the imperial quarrel, with the war that made it possible. Pitt's decision to commit Britain's strength to North America while France was pinned down in Europe produced Louisbourg, Quebec and the end of French power on the continent, and with it an empire far larger and far more expensive to hold.

The colonies he then describes are neither uniformly prosperous nor socially flat. Merchant fortunes and intermarried families concentrated at the top; Hudson Valley manors carried feudal-sounding privileges their holders rarely exercised; the share of taxable wealth held by the richest few in Boston and Philadelphia climbed across the century while the urban poor went hungry and rioted for bread to little effect.

Out of that setting come the measures that broke the peace, starting with Grenville's molasses duty and a customs service that had never managed to collect much of anything.