Friends of Freedom
The Rise of Social Movements in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

From the Sons of Liberty to British reformers, Irish patriots, French Jacobins, Haitian revolutionaries and American Democrats, the greatest social movements of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions grew as part of a common, interrelated pattern. In this new transnational history, Micah Alpaugh demonstrates the connections between the most prominent causes of the era, as they drew upon each other's models to seek unprecedented changes in government. As Friends of Freedom, activists shared ideas and strategies internationally, creating a chain of broad-based campaigns that mobilized the American Revolution, British Parliamentary Reform, Irish nationalism, movements for religious freedom, abolitionism, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and American party politics. Rather than a series of distinct national histories, Alpaugh shows how these movements jointly responded to the Atlantic trends of their era to create a new way to alter or overthrow governments: mobilizing massive social movements.

Introduction; Part I. The American revolution ignites social movements: 1. The sons of liberty and the creation of a movement model; 2. From boycott mobilization to the American revolution; 3. Wilkes, liberty, and the Anglo-American crisis; 4. The British association movement and Parliamentary reform; 5. The Irish volunteers and Militant reform; 6. Religious freedom, political liberty, and protestant dissenter civil rights; 7. The rise of American abolitionism; 8. British abolitionism and the Broadening of Social Movements; Part II. The French revolution radicalizes social movements: 9. The genesis of the French Jacobins; 10. French revolutionary polarization and the coming of the Haitian Revolution; 11. The French Jacobin network in power; 12. Radicalizing club life in 1790s Britain; 13. The United Irishmen in an Atlantic crosswind; 14. The French revolution and the making of the American democratic party; 15. From revolutionary committees to American electoral party politics.

Micah Alpaugh is Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Missouri. His previous publications include Non-Violence and the French Revolution: Political Demonstrations in Paris, 1787-1795 (2015), The French Revolution: A History in Documents (2021), and articles in European History Quarterly, Journal of Social History, and French Historical Studies.