The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865

A groundbreaking history of early America that shows how Boston built and sustained an independent city-state in New England before being folded into the United States

In the vaunted annals of America’s founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary ‘city upon a hill’ and the ‘cradle of liberty’ for an independent United States. Wresting this revered metropolis from these misleading, tired cliches, The City-State of Boston highlights Boston’s overlooked past as an autonomous city-state, and in doing so, offers a pathbreaking and brilliant new history of early America. Following Boston’s development over three centuries, Mark Peterson discusses how this self-governing Atlantic trading centre began as a refuge from Britain’s Stuart monarchs and how - through its bargain with the slave trade and ratification of the Constitution - it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States.

The City-State of Boston peels away layers of myth to offer a startlingly fresh understanding of this iconic urban centre.

‘[A] richly detailed history.’ - New Yorker

‘Boldly original.’ - Alex Beam, Wall Street Journal

‘An ambitious work based on prodigious research.’ - Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Times Literary Supplement