Corsica in the 1750s was a desperately poor and violent place. Home to around 120,000 people, the Mediterranean island had struggled for years against the rule of nearby Genoa, and much of it was also plagued by clan warfare.
It is here that Linda Colley begins The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen, her book about the creation of the modern world. Because it was here, in the town of Corte, that one of the great revolutionary constitutions of the 18th century was penned.
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