Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763 [B0932]

2004 HCDJ in nice clean condition. For many, the French and Indian War has been merely the backdrop for James Fenimore Cooper's famous novel, The Last of the Mohicans. William M. Fowler Jr.'s engrossing narrative reveals it to have been a turning point of modern history, without which the American Revolution as we know it might well not have occurred.

On May 28, 1754, a group of militia and Indians led by twenty-two-year-old major George Washington surprised a camp of sleeping French soldiers near present-day Pittsburgh. Washington could not have known it, but the brief and deadly exchange of fire that ensued lit the match that, in Horace Walpole's memorable phrase, would "set the world on fire." The resulting French and Indian War in North America became part of the global conflict known as the Seven Years War, fought across Europe, India, and the East and West Indies. Before it ended, nearly one million men had died. Empires at War captures the sweeping panorama of this first world war, especially in its descriptions of the strategy and intensity of the engagements in North America, many of them epic struggles between armies in the wilderness. William M. Fowler Jr. views the conflict both from British prime minister William Pitt's perspective-- as a vast chessboard, on which William Shirley's campaign in North America and the fortunes of Frederick the Great of Prussia were connected,

From recent-ish Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Ah, yes, the French and Indian War. One of the least understood and ignored conflicts of history. The British and French rivalry brought to America. No surprise putting these two on the same continent with no channel between them erupted in arguably the first world war. This book explains it all clearly and succinctly. It shows the strategies of Britain, France, Spain, etc. and how there were many interests at play: military, mercantile, colonization and greed and carelessness. The book is a good introduction to the subject."; "This book is a good overview of the French and Indian War, and very readable."