The French and Indian War
Deciding the Fate of North America
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4.1 • 54 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
In the summer of 1754, deep in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania, a very young George Washington suffered his first military defeat, and a centuries-old feud between Great Britain and France was rekindled. The war that followed would be fought across virgin territories, from Nova Scotia to the forks of the Ohio River, and it would ultimately decide the fate of the entire North American continent—not just for Great Britain and France but also for the Spanish and Native American populations.
Noted historian Walter R. Borneman brings to life an epic struggle for a continent—what Samuel Eliot Morison called "truly the first world war"—and emphasizes how the seeds of discord sown in its aftermath would take root and blossom into the American Revolution.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Borneman offers an excellent general-audience version of Fred Anderson's Crucible of War (2000), the definitive academic history of the mid 18th-century French and Indian War and its long-term consequences for America and the world. Drawing on a broad spectrum of primary and secondary sources, Borneman (1812: The War That Forged a Nation) argues that the French and Indian War not only made Britain master of North America but created an empire that dominated the world for two centuries. What began in the Ohio Valley in 1755 as the local defeat of a small force under Gen. Edwin Braddock escalated into what legitimately merits designation as the First World War. Borneman connects that complex conflict in North America with events in the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. Although the Native Americans were "the real losers" in the war for their continent, they offered formidable resistance to a developing European hegemony. But the English colonials' discomfiture overshadowed Native Americans', as the settlers were expected to help finance the war but were denied its fruits by being forbidden to claim land west of the Appalachians. Britain's victory in the French and Indian War thus lit the kindling for the American Revolution.
Customer Reviews
Little known history
Lately I have been interested in some of the more obscure events in American history. I learned about the French & Indian (cf: Seven Years) War in grade school, but it was as an afterthought. This book is a well-written account of what turned out to be a fascinating war, which led to Britain becoming dominant in North America (although almost the Caribbean instead), the Spanish foolishly setting up the failure for their holdings, and sowing the seeds for the American Revolution, while providing battle experience for a minor officer named George Washington.
I have read several books by Walter R. Borneman. Although it is non-fiction, he writes with a compelling, but engaging, style that brings even minor decisions and movements to a significant place in the historical scheme. And he weaves the “current” events into past and present in American history.