Crucible of War : The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (Vintage)
- Book Review,
by FRED ANDERSON
Amazon.com
Histories of the American Revolution tend to start in 1763, the end of the Seven Year's War, a worldwide struggle for empire that pitted France against England in North America, Europe, and Asia. Fred Anderson, who teaches history at the University of Colorado, takes the story back a decade and explains the significance of the conflict in American history. Demonstrating that independence was not inevitable or even at first desired by the colonists, he shows how removal of the threat from France was essential before Americans could develop their own concepts of democratic government and defy their imperial British protectors. Of great interest is the importance of Native Americans in the conflict. Both the French and English had Indian allies; France's defeat ended a diplomatic system in which Indian nations, especially the 300-year-old Iroquois League, held the balance between the colonial powers. In a fast-paced narrative, Anderson moves with confidence and ease from the forests of Ohio and battlefields along the St. Lawrence to London's House of Commons and the palaces of Europe. He makes complex economic, social, and diplomatic patterns accessible and easy to understand. Using a vast body of research, he takes the time to paint the players as living personalities, from George III and George Washington to a host of supporting characters. The book's usefulness and clarity are enhanced by a hundred landscapes, portraits, maps, and charts taken from contemporary sources. Crucible of War is political and military history at its best; it never flags and is a pleasure to read. --John Stevenson
From Publishers Weekly
From 1756 to 1763, the Ohio Valley was the site of a historic contest between the French and the English, both of whom wanted to add this fertile soil to their colonial holdings. In this elegant new account of the Seven Years' War, University of Colorado historian Anderson demonstrates that the conflict was more than just a peripheral squabble that anticipated the American Revolution. Not only did the war decisively alter relations among the French, the English and the Native American allies of the two powers, who for decades had played the English and French off one another to their own advantage, but just as critical, argues Anderson, the war also changed the character of British imperialism, with the mother country trying to reshape the terms of empire and the colonists' place in it. (It was the British victory of 1763, for example, that led the British to post a permanent, peacetime army in America and to support those troops with new taxes.) Indeed, Anderson shows that familiar events of the mid-1760s, like the Stamp Act and Tea Act crises, are better understood as postwar rather than prewar events: they did not "reflect a movement toward revolution so much as an effort to define the imperial relationship." This volume, then, will be of interest not just to Seven Years' War buffs, but also to those interested in the entire Revolutionary era. Anderson's magisterial study--like his earlier book, A People's Army--is essential reading on an often ignored war. 90 illus. and 9 maps. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Anderson (history, Univ. of Colorado; A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War), who worked on this massive book for ten years, tells a fascinating story of the events and personalities of the Seven Years' War, which he considers the most important military conflict of the 18th century. From the perspective of all of North America and of the world-wide empires of the major European nations, it was far more significant than the American Revolution, he argues. Anderson demonstrates that the events of the 1750s and 1760s need to be viewed on their own terms, not as mere preliminaries to the American Revolution. One of the great strengths of this book is its expert integration of the Iroquois confederation into discussions of North American and European diplomacy. Enriched by a plethora of excellent maps and illustrations, this book combines exhaustive original research with a wonderfully accessible writing style. This terrific book is highly recommended for all university and large public libraries.-Thomas J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., NY Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Charles Royster
Anderson carries his mastery of a vast scholarly literature lightly. His wide-ranging story is eventful and fast-paced, yet always clear.
From Booklist
The panoramas of the French and Indian War have commonly been considered mere preliminaries to the American Revolution. Anderson advances this consuming corrective that places the conflict, and the world war it ignited, within its own valences of imperial rivalry, colonial politics, parliamentary politics, land speculation and squatting settlers, and Indian diplomacy and resistance. The initiation of the war in 1754 illustrated its tangled causes and course: a Virginia squad with Mingo Indian allies asserting the British claim to the Ohio Valley, led by a land-speculating, soon-to-be famous George Washington, quasi-massacred a French detachment. Branded an assassin by the French, Washington barely escaped from their counterattack and returned the following year to be beaten a second time in Braddock's famous defeat. Each frontier ambush, siege, and occasional set-piece battle of the war is ably narrated, but better yet is Anderson's connection of the fighting to the political-diplomatic centers, be it the House of Commons, colonial assemblies, or the council fire. These in turn were embodied in the various flesh-and-blood actors whom Anderson vividly re-creates, not only the famous, such as Pontiac, William Pitt, or Montcalm, but many a soldier whose role may have been transient but significant. Eminently approachable by the avid American history buff, Anderson's complete, balanced, and fluid opus will doubtlessly be the best word on its subject for some time. Gilbert Taylor
From Kirkus Reviews
Characters come brilliantly to life, and events, some awful and unbelievable, are vividly painted in this important and beautifully written history. Anderson (History/Univ. of Colorado) here earns his crown as the preeminent chronicler of what Americans know as the French and Indian War. Author of a previous work on the fighting men of that conflict (A People's Army, 1984), he displays massive erudition, deft command of a sprawling array of sources, familiarity with all the relevant written histories, and, happily, the ability to tell what amounts to an extended series of whopping good tales. Behind all the hundreds of arresting incidents lies his argument this 18th-century world war was not simply a precursor to the American Revolution but a coequal influence with it in creating the American republic. Anderson's way of getting to that claim ought especially to draw readers interested in the supposedly ``dead,'' traditional subjects of imperial politics, institutions, battles, and war. The continent's vast collection of peopleBritish, French, colonists, and natives from all walks of lifeplay their part. Most important, Indians occupy key roles in deciding the fate of the great imperial powers, and thus of the future American nation. George Washington is a principal actor upon the stage. A wonderful dividend is Andersons superbly captioned illustrations, some of them printed here for the first time; in addition, the maps put those in many other histories to shame. It will be a long time before the tale of this great war for empire in the New World needs to be told again. And it's unlikely that it will ever be told so well. A scholarly book artfully written for general readers who seek a rousing, epic yarn and the best sort of history. (90 illus., 9 maps) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Vivid and memorable?eventful and fast-paced."?The New York Times Book Review
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Book Description
In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years' War–long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution–takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain’s empire and to sow the seeds of its eventual dissolution.
Beginning with a skirmish in the Pennsylvania backcountry involving an inexperienced George Washington, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson, and the ill-fated French emissary Jumonville, Anderson reveals a chain of events that would lead to world conflagration. Weaving together the military, economic, and political motives of the participants with unforgettable portraits of Washington, William Pitt, Montcalm, and many others, Anderson brings a fresh perspective to one of America’s most important wars, demonstrating how the forces unleashed there would irrevocably change the politics of empire in North America.
From the Publisher
"Reading Crucible of War is an enriching experience...Anderson meets the enormous challenge he has set for himself." -- Wall Street Journal
"A wonderful narrative of the Seven Years' War...It promises to revolutionize our understanding of one of America's most important wars."-- Jill Lepore, author of The Name of War
"Anderson carries his mastery of a vast scholarly literature lightly....His characterizations are vivid and memorable ...His wide-ranging story is eventful and fast-paced, yet always clear. His exposition of cultural conflicts, strategy, politics and diplomacy is lucid...This book will be read by many people and will be in print for a long, long time."-- Charles Royster, New York Times Book Review
"Readable and insightful, Crucible of War is now our best study of the Seven Years' War...He has taken on the old masters of Anglo-American imperial warfare, Francis Parkman and Lawrence Gipson, and done them one better."-- Don Higgenbotham, author of The War of American Independence
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