David Armitage on George III and the Law of Nations: now published in the WMQ

We are delighted to announce that David Armitage’s article on George III and the Law of Nations is now available on Project Muse having been published in the January 2022 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 79, no.1, pages 3-30. The article originates in his research as the Sons of the American Revolution Visiting Professor at King’s College London, and builds on his Sons of the American Revolution annual lecture delivered for King’s in pandemic conditions in December 2020 (this can still be viewed on this website here: https://georgianpapers.com/2021/01/19/2020-david-armitage-sons-of-the-american-revolution-lecture/). It is an important example of the significance of the ‘essays of George III’, one of the key elements of the papers being digitised by the Georgian Papers Programme (investigated here by Jenny Buckley).

The article is behind a paywall, but many friends of the Georgian Papers may nevertheless have institutional or personal access to the article, which can be read here: 10.1353/wmq.2022.0006

David’s work attracted a lot of media attention in December 2021, above all through an accompanying essay he published in the Times Literary Supplement, which can be read here: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/george-iii-slavery-archival-discovery-essay-david-armitage/ (paywall) and was covered in The Times, The Daily Mail, The Washington Post and elsewhere. At a time when the relationship of the royal family with the institution of transatlantic slavery is attracting renewed attention (see for example Trevor Burnard’s recent article in the Guardian, or GPP fellow Brooke Newman’s article for Slate) David’s scholarly article is an important contribution to our understanding of the subject.