THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2026 79 roles on the American continent during the revolution. We all know about General Cornwallis and his surrender at Yorktown, but I had no real insight into his later career, where India features heavily. Not surprisingly, perhaps, my favorite chapter is the only one that breaks the “one place at a time” mold and instead tells the story of the loyalists and their fates. Bell uses Benedict Arnold and his notorious wife, Peggy Shippen, as the “protagonists” of this chapter, but does so in a way that allows the reader to understand more fully the experience of the loyalists following the revolution, and just how challenging life was for most of them during those years. Arnold’s post-revolution career and life were rather unhappy, which was mostly new information for me. He often disappears from the narrative after attempting to surrender West Point to the British, but Bell provides a good No stodgy scholarly work that some might find too dense to wade through, this book is highly readable. amount of new context about the consequences of bad decisions, including (in Arnold’s case) a very difficult time in the frozen winter of New Brunswick. The American Revolution and the Fate of the World would make a great gift for the history buff in your life. Just warn them not to be taken in by the very dramatic title splashed across the cover. n Ásgeir Sigfússon is the executive director of the American Foreign Service Association. An electronic journal of commentary, analysis, research, and reviews on American foreign policy and its practice. Visit our website to read or print articles, research the hundreds of articles in our archives, and share them with colleagues and friends. Contact us to write for the journal. New writing prize for student writers. Insight and Analysis from Foreign Affairs Practitioners and Scholars americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu
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