How American, Dutch, and Irish Patriots set the Age of Revolution in motion

The Patriot Atlantic fundamentally reshapes our understanding of when and how the Age of Revolution began. Between 1747 and 1787, revolutionary movements erupted across the Atlantic World—in the Dutch Republic, Ireland, and North America—each driven by revolutionaries who called themselves Patriots and shared a common vision of restoring ancient liberties and constitutional rights. All three focused on establishing a virtuous, balanced, and representative government supported by an armed citizenry.

In this book, Matthijs Tieleman reveals how these three revolutions, long studied in isolation as part of separate national histories, were closely linked events. As John Adams wrote in 1781, “The history of the one seems to be but a transcript of the other.” Tieleman shows how Dutch and Irish revolutionaries shaped American ideas about liberty, constitutionalism, and political economy in ways that have been overlooked, and how significant events in these revolutions functioned like interconnected cogs in a wheel, constantly interacting to move each other forward. The Patriot Atlantic illuminates not only the origins of the modern Atlantic World but also the unique historical trajectory of the United States—the only Patriot revolution to succeed—within it.