PETER COE on BRITS WHO SHAPED AMERICA, POST-REVOLUTIONARY TALES OF INFLUENCE AND IMPACT. CHAIRED BY SAVILIAN TOM NEWTON DUNN.

                                                           

After the Revolutionary War, the fledgling United States was a land of promise. It was ripe for development, yet in need of the industrial and intellectual capital to thrive.

So, how did America turn itself from a largely agrarian society into the sophisticated, industrial and military colossus it became in the twentieth century?

In Brits Who Shaped America, PJ Coë illuminates the part played by influential Britons in this astonishing transformation, from the eve to the sunset of the nineteenth century.

They include Samuel Slater, Father of America’s Industrial Revolution; Andrew Carnegie driving the steel industry to unprecedented heights; Florence Nightingale’s transformational impact on nursing standards and education; and Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde’s cultural commentaries.

Some came seeking opportunity, others were driven by ideology or circumstance. Whether they set foot on American soil and stayed, came on tour, or cast their spell from afar, these Britons were architects of America’s future.

PJ Coë has spent decades reporting and writing on those at the forefront of political and economic change, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. He has now combined his experience from a long career in newspaper, radio and TV journalism with a fascination in modern history to produce his first book: Brits Who Shaped America: Post-Revolutionary Tales of Influence and Impact.

Tom Newton Dunn is a broadcaster and political commentator, and George Mallory’s great nephew. He first made his name as an award-winning defence correspondent before moving to political journalism, where he led coverage of four general election campaigns and the Brexit referendum, interviewing seven British Prime Ministers and US President Donald Trump twice. Tom was Political Editor at The Sun for 11 years before leaving to help launch Times Radio and presented its flagship Sunday morning political programme. He moved to TalkTV on its launch to anchor an hour-long weeknight news programme. Tom now works cross-platform for The Times and is an Evening Standard columnist. He has ghostwritten two military biographies, Sniper One (2006) and Apache (2008), both of which were Sunday Times bestsellers