The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

Denver Brunsman, Assistant Professor of History, describes in vivid detail the experience of impressment for Atlantic seafarers and their families. Brunsman draws upon ships' logs, merchants' papers, personal letters and diaries, and a number of other primary sources to illustrate how controversy over impressment contributed to the American Revolution and was a leading cause of the War of 1812.