Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World

American scholar and author Maya Jasanoff (born 1974), as of 2022, holds the position of Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University and serves as a visiting professor at Ahmedabad University in India. Jasanoff specializes in the history of the British Empire and globalization. Her prize-winning books include Edge of Empire (2005), Liberty’s Exiles (2011), and The Dawn Watch (2017).

As Jasanoff discusses in Liberty’s Exiles, she has traveled and conducted research in archives throughout the former British Empire. Through her familiarity with evidence of loyalist refugees scattered throughout the world, Jasanoff can authoritatively analyze the loyalist diaspora as a global phenomenon. Jasanoff researches and teaches courses about writing history and historical fiction. In 2021, she took part in the Lawrence Stone Lectures at Princeton University, speaking about the relationship between writing fictional and historical texts. The richly detailed narratives of events in the lives of individual loyalist refugees in Liberty’s Exiles reflect her emphasis on the importance of descriptive writing in historical scholarship.

Born in Virginia, Beverley Robinson (1722-1792) was a childhood friend of George Washington. Robinson married into a wealthy New York family and owned valuable real estate outside New York City. Well-received in New York society, Robinson befriended John Jay, who became an outspoken advocate of revolution.