From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia (Award-winning)

A new view on British loyalism, Georgia colonialism, and the American Revolution

From Empire to Revolution is the first biography devoted to an in-depth examination of the life and conflicted career of Sir James Wright (1716–1785). Greg Brooking uses Wright’s life as a means to better understand the complex struggle for power in both colonial Georgia and the larger British Empire.

James Wright lived a transatlantic life, taking advantage of every imperial opportunity afforded him. He earned numerous important government posts and amassed an incredible fortune, totaling over £100,000 sterling. An England-born grandson of Sir Robert Wright, James Wright was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, following his father’s appointment as the chief justice of that colony. Young James served South Carolina in a number of capacities, public and ecclesiastical, prior to his admittance to London’s famed Gray’s Inn to study law. Most notably, he was appointed South Carolina’s attorney general and colonial agent to London prior to becoming the governor of Georgia in 1761.

Wright’s long imperial career delicately balanced dual loyalties to Crown and colony and offers a new perspective on loyalism and the American Revolution. Through this lens, Greg Brooking connects several important contexts in recent early American and British scholarship, including imperial and Atlantic history, Indigenous borderlands, race and slavery, and popular politics.

Editorial Reviews

In this sensitive and insightful account of the life of James Wright, governor of Georgia, Greg Brooking provides a nuanced portrait of loyalism that should be read by all students of the Revolution. Brooking shows us that neither Wright nor loyalists in other colonies based their fateful―and often painful―choice on a political ideology that differed from their radical neighbors; instead, they were motivated by individual considerations of family ties, economic circumstances, and personal temperament―just as many who chose independence would be. — Carol Berkin ― author of A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism

For fifteen years, James Wright deftly governed Georgia, overseeing the colony’s economic expansion and population growth. Despite frequent conflicts between Georgia’s interests and British policy, Wright successfully navigated the difficult course between colonial and imperial demands until the American Revolution brought his leadership to an end. Greg Brooking makes a major contribution to the history of colonial and Revolutionary America with this biography of an important but oft-neglected figure. — Jim Piecuch ― author of Three Peoples, One King: Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the Revolutionary South, 1775–1782

In this richly detailed biography, Greg Brooking recovers the fascinating life of one of the most significant and least studied royal governors and deftly explores the complexities of colonial and revolutionary politics in the South. — Michael D. Hattem ― author of Past and Prologue and The Memory of ‘76

Reviews

Stuart Ferguson, “Loyal to the Last,” The Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2024.

Sam Short, “From Empire to Revolution,” Journal of the American Revolution, September 9, 2024

Events

January 22, 2025: “Lunch and Learn,” hosted by the Georgia Archives.

November 13, 2024: “The American Revolution Institute,” hosted by the Society of the Cincinnati.

September 13, 2024: “Off the Deaton Path,” hosted by Stan Deaton and the Georgia Historical Society.

“The Price of Loyalty in Colonial Georgia” (online), February 1, 2025, Hallowed Ground Magazine.

“No Stamps, No Riot Act”: Governor James Wright and the Stamp Act Crisis in Georgia. Georgia Historical Quarterly XCXVII (Winter 2023),

“a Very unexpected alarming and serious scene”: James Wright, the Southern Strategy, and the Siege of Savannah. Georgia Historical Quarterly XCVIII (Winter 2014).

“Fury of their resentment”: The Arrest of Georgia’s Royal Governor Sir James Wright (online) Journal of the American Revolution, May 9, 2014.

“I am an independent spirit and confide in my own resources”: Nathanael Greene and his Continental Subordinates, 1780-1781,” in General Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution in the South, ed. by Gregory Massey and James Piecuch (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2012).

Nine book reviews for the following journals: Journal of Southern History; H-War; The William and Mary Quarterly; Georgia Historical Quarterly; the Southern Historian; and the American Revolution.

Three encyclopedia entries for the following: Encyclopedia of Politics of the American West, ed. by Steven L. Denver and the Encyclopedia of the War of 1812, ed. by Spencer Tucker, James Arnold, Robert Wiener, Paul G. Pierpaoli, Jr., and John C. Fredriksen. 

Content Development and Authoring for Daniel Tucker, et al., How to Survive Middle School: United States History (New York: Slideshow Media, 2022).

Content Development and Authoring for ancillaries to accompany Joshua Cole, et al., Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture, Brief 4^th Edition (New York: Norton Publishing, 2020).

Historical Consultant and editor for Daniel Tucker, The Hamilton Collection: The Wisdom and Writings of the Founding Father (New York: Slideshow Media, 2017).

Introduction to Georgia History in Fiction: Cousin Wash Garner: An Appalachian Folktale.  Georgia Historical Quarterly XCI, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 206-216. 

Journal Referee for the Georgia Historical Quarterly and the Journal of the Georgia Association of Historians.