The Men Who Lost America

For the American colonists, it was a stunning triumph, a victory of ideological revolutionaries and flinty farmers against the most powerful empire on earth.

For the British, however, the American revolution was a stunning loss — a war of failed occupation, an empire stretched too far, a poorly executed war of choice and folly. If it sounds like there are some echoes with modern military history, that's because there are.

Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His new book is The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire.

Check out this video of the fictional General Cornwallis from The Patriot.

http://youtu.be/dehB246v3pM