"In 1775, the Atlantic world was utterly dominated by four monarchies: those of Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. Between them, they largely controlled the seaways. They laid claim to vast territories, including most of the two American continents. They mustered the region's strongest land armies. Their subjects carried out nearly all of its most dynamic economic activity, much of which was supported by slave labor. Only a tiny percentage of these subjects had a voice in how they were governed. Fifty years later, this dominion was at an end. Each of the four monarchies had been shaken to the core by the wave of revolutions that began in Lexington, Massachusetts on 19 April 1775. At a minimum, the Atlantic territories affected by revolution included the United States, France, present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Haiti, and the vast mainland American possessions of Spain and Portugal"--