The gun, the ship, and the pen : warfare, constitutions, and the making of the modern world /Linda Colley.

"A work of extraordinary range and originality, The Gun, the Ship and the Pen traces the global history of written constitutions from the 1750s to the twentieth century, modifying accepted narratives and uncovering the close connections between constitutions and war. In the process, Linda Colley both reappraises famous constitutions and recovers those that have been marginalised but were central to the rise fo the modern world. Colley shows how - while advancing epic revolutions and progressively enfranchising white males - constiutions also served over the long nineteenth century to marginalise indigenous peoples, exclude women and people of colour, and expropriate land. Simultaneously she investigates how these devices were adapted by peoples and activists outside the West seekign to resist European and American power. She describes how Tunisia generated the first modern Islamic constitution in 1861; how Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone devised pioneering plans for self-governing nations in West Africa; and how Japan's Meiji constitution of 1889 became a model for many Indian, Chinese and Ottoman nationalists and reformers. Throughout, Colley illumines the links between the rise of constitutions and wider cultural histories and brigns to life some of the remarkable men and women invovled in their writing."--Provided by the publisher.