Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766

Like most Americans, I thought of the Seven Years War as an inconsequential skirmish on the frontier where George Washington taught the British how to fight the Indians. While reading a biography of William Pitt the Elder, I found how wrong I was.I decided to learn more about this very consequential war and, to my good fortune, happened upon "Crucible of War" by Fred Anderson. Mr. Anderson writes with humor and a deep understanding of his subject. It is a long, but very easy read.I have learned that George Washington was a bit of a bumbler, who lit the spark that started this war. During his service he learned the organizational skills that served his country well in the American Revolution. More importantly, he and his fellow soldiers developed an American identity separate and distinct from the English they fought beside during the war. Indeed, I think it fair to say that this growing notion that Americans were different from the English set the stage for our war of independence.But, the war was much wider than the rough American wilderness. Pitt's genius was to set this war as the instrument by which he would strip France of it's colonial possessions. Accordingly, he paid large sums to Frederick the Great to fight the French in Europe while the English fought in America, the Caribbean and India. Their success deprived the French king of his Imperially derived wealth and set him up for the French Revolution.Mr. Anderson's book offers insights into this conflict that we do not get in a high school or even a college history class. It is an engaging and informative read that draws the reader into the minds and lives of the generals, politicians and common soldiers who risked so much to begin to mold modern western civilization.

Fred Anderson does a superb job of summing up The Seven Years War in North America from the British and Colonial perspective in Crucible of War. With an immense amount of material on the subject he has compressed the subject into one book, which the meat of spans almost 750 pages. The book covers the prelude to the war, the war, and the aftermath of the fighting. While covering The Seven Years War Anderson argues the importance of the war to American history. He points to all the actions that started the Colonists on the road to war for The American War for Independence. The cultural differences between the Colonials and the Redcoats are brought to light showing how the seeds of dissent were sown. Anderson shows how early actions in the war fostered misperceptions in Parliament on the nature of the Colonists. Early failures in the Colonial Governments hampered the war effort leaving Parliament with the notion that the Americans were not willing to help in the defense of a war that the Americans had started, and was being fought on American soil. Anderson covers the war from the strategic and operational perspectives and focus strongly on the politics and politicians that influenced the British war effort. Very little is mentioned of anything at a tactical level. A great deal is discussed on the logistics as well. The book falls well into the realm of "new military history". With little on individual heroics and valor this book is written more for someone looking for a military history perspective and less of an appeal to a military enthusiast. The final pages in the book discuss the aftermath of the war, connecting the actions and perceptions brought forward from the war into the various Acts that Parliament passed to try to avoid falling into financial ruin. Anderson gives an unbiased approach to this portion of the book, as he does to the rest of it, when he covers Parliament's perspective. Another reviewer believes that Anderson had an American bias, I have to disagree. As an American I came away with a better understanding of why the Parliament made the choices they did in reference the Acts. Parliament did not understand how much money the Colonial governments put into the war effort and believed they had bared the entire financial burden for the war. With that belief they felt it was only fair for the Colonists to support the crown by paying for the portion of a larger Army that would need to stay in America to protect Colonies from French attempts to retake land lost, though that never occurred and the Army stirred dissent in the end. I think he could have done a better job of showing differences between the Natives, Colonial and English perspectives on who actually won the war and how those perspectives effected British policy (preventing settlement west of the Appalachians), Native actions (Pontiac's Rebellion for Colonial encroachment on Native lands) and Colonial response (anger over the inability to settle lands that were believed to be won in battle). The length of the book is not long enough to go into much depth on any particular area and I don't think it was meant too, excessive depth would have greatly expanded the book's length. It is an excellent book to get a broad understanding of the war, so many books cover portions of the war and the readers do not really understand all of the influences affecting particular campaigns or battles. For any historian starting to research The Seven Years War in North America this book is an excellent first book, which should be followed by other books that provide more depth on specific battles, campaigns and political or military leaders. The book relies on a larger amount of secondary material, but Anderson also uses a great deal of primary sources. He doesn't have a bibliography, but he quotes sources in his end notes. The book would have been a little better had he used footnotes as opposed to endnotes, but it makes for a cleaner read for someone who is interested in the information he provides and not his sources. This leads me to believe that Anderson might have hoped for an audience much wider than the historical community. I have read some of the negative critiques on this book and think they were undeserving. I believe many of the people reading the book were expecting more of an old school military history, which focuses on the battles and military leaders and less on the social and political influences affecting the war. The book does not give a detailed account of the French or Native perspectives. It touches on their perspective in areas where it needs to. It also touches on the events in Europe, India, the West Indies and the Philippines to give some needed perspective. The title of the book, The Fate of Empire in British North America, should make it clear where the perspective is focusing. There are several other books that focus on the Native perspective along with the French perspective that should be read in order to get a complete understanding of the war. I do not think that Anderson downplayed any important personnel, the book wasn't intended to go into the detail some people would like for specific influential people, there just wasn't the space to cover the entire span of the war and keep that much information manageable in one book. This book reads well and Anderson successfully shows that The Seven Years War was just as important in American history as the American War for Independence. The Seven Years War caused the differences leading to the later war and brought France and Spain to the aid of the Colonists, without which they could never have won. Military equipment, in particular gunpowder, was not manufactured in America and it had to be brought in from Europe. France and Spain aided the Colonists for the sole purpose of avenging their losses in The Seven Years War, not to support the Colonial cause. I strongly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more on The Seven Years War and American history. It will open the eyes of those who thought the "French and Indian War" was an insignificant skirmish with little value to American history. The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff is a good follow up to this book to gain a broad look on the American War for Independence.

As I explained in my last few posts, a short while ago, I decided to do a straight reading up on the history of my country. Not by a series of biographies or of any particular event; but a simple march through the ages exploring all the eras of the United States of America. The biggest challenge is to find books that try their best to explore from multiple perspectives in order to avoid just one narrow view, without at the same time surrendering a general narrative that is both readable and enjoyable. After finishing Jill Lepore's book on King Phillip's War, I decided to move on to Fred Anderson's book covering what we in America call the French and Indian War. The book looks at the major actors in the British and French Empires, and the Iroquois Confederacy and how this conflict changed them from top to bottom.Like many wars, especially European Wars in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the conflict covered in this work is known by two names. Anglo-American colonials tended to name their wars after their kings and queens. The colonists had named the War of Austrian Succession,'King George's War', and created a problem because King George II was still on the throne. They needed a new name for the conflict that Europe would call the Seven-Years' War. The name the Anglo-American colonists came up with was: 'the French and Indian War'.Fred Anderson's reason for producing this book is that the place we historians assign the French and Indian War in the historical narrative, he argues, is as the simple prologue of the American Revolutionary War. With this book, Anderson brings the America's most forgotten and--arguably--most important war, to the forefront to be study on its own terms and not as the inevitable beginning of a different conflict. Prior to this war, the two great colonial powers in North America were the British and French Empires. These empires were populated by colonists who were strongly identified with their imperial connections and a powerful Native American Nation in the Iroquois Confederacy that was able to provide a buffer and power broker between the two powers. After this conflict the French would be vanquished and the British would be left with an empire that was most ungovernable and the Iroquois would be set on the beginning of their fall from power.When I was in college, I, who had always been a history buff, felt I had strong understanding of World War II. Then in my Western Civilization II class with Parker Albee, we spent some time going over World War I. I remember thinking--as if a light had gone off in my head--'I understand why World War II happened better now.' Prior, all I had known of World War I had been some of its aftermath that helped lead to World War II, but nothing in real strong detail. I now view World War I and World War II almost as the different chapters in the same historic event. Having read this book I feel the same way about my understanding of the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War, as I did with my earlier reevaluations on World War I and World War II. I realize that this may sound the opposite of Anderson's intentions; however, I want to stress that reading this book you understand the French and Indian War as its own event but it still increases your understanding of the American Revolution.One of the biggest things that stood out in my mind while reading this book was how some of the politics that led to the American Revolution against Britain during the late 1760s and 1770s were foreshadowed by the early events of the French and Indian War. The Earl of Loudoun, who was the commander in chief of the British armies in America, made several attempts to command the colonial governors and legislatures as if they were his colonels. His actions and the massive attempts to resist them by the colonial Anglo-Americans strongly resembled what was to come a decade later. Fortunately for the British cause in this war, William Pitt, who was a strong believer in the colonial subjects British rights, relived Loudoun of his command and set the colonial relations to rights."By mid-December 1757, Pitt knew that if the American assemblies were to be transformed from centers of resistance into sources of men and money, he would have to reverse entirely the course of colonial policy. Instead of treating the colonies like subordinate jurisdictions and requiring them to finance the war effort by forced contributions to a common fund, Pitt resolved to treat them like allies, offering subsidies to encourage their assemblies to aid in the conquest of New France. Rather than continuing to demand that civil authority, in the persons of colonial governors and legislatures, submit to military power in the person of His Majesty's commander in chief, Pitt resolved to withhold from Loudoun's successor direct authority over the provinces. In the future, as always in the past, the governors would receive their instructions directly from the secretary of state for the Southern Department. By this new grant (or more properly, restoration) of autonomy to the provinces, by offering inducements to cooperation rather than by seeking to compel union among them, Pitt hoped to create a patriotic enthusiasm that had not been much in evidence since 1756."p.214In this book Anderson masterfully moves his readers from one military theater on the frontiers North America to another on continental Europe, he also cross-cuts from one political scene to another. While reading this book, the reader will go from the court of King George II to the assemblies of the American colonies, to military headquarters of Fredrick the Great, to the Massachusetts colonial militia. Yet it never becomes confusing making the reader feel out of place, Anderson's narrative flows smoothly from one event and theater to another without missing a beat.I highly recommend this work to anyone it is really exceptional book. Fred Anderson takes a highly difficult and at times confusing subject and lays it out rather neatly making it easy for his readers to understand this war that had so much impact on the modern world.

Anderson's book is certainly the best recent history of the French and Indian War. The book provides a narrative overview of the struggle across North America, and makes reference to the progress of the war in Europe. Anderson also discusses the impact of the war on the British Empire and the attempts at reform which led to the Stamp Act of 1765. Anderson builds on his many years of research to present a masterful narrative, accessible to both professional historians and the general reader. The emphasis is on military history, politics and diplomacy, and the book is perhaps slightly weak on social history and Native American history--though these are both discussed in the book. However, if you want a single, detailed, (832 pages) book on the Seven Years' War in North America, this is it.

GREAT CONDITION SUPERB QUICK DELIVERY

This is a classic account of the first Worldwide War and essential reading for anyone interested in the history of war and the growth of the European nation states and their empires in the 18th Century.

I've read a few other books on the subject, but found them dry and unengaging. This one is a hefty volume, but is consistently written in such a way that is not only easy to read, but it grabbed my interest at the start and didn't let go. Thoroughly enjoyable and informative.

Well written and with an understanding that is both comprehensive and striking.