The War That Made America

In 1754 an uneasy balance existed on the North American continent between three great nations: France, the Iroquois Confederacy, and the British Empire. Seven years later, following the French and Indian War, only one superpower remained, England. Simon Vance handles this complex narrative with a stately intelligence, although his British accent belies the preeminence of England in this story. He pronounces the many Native American place names and French-Canadian phrases with ease. Look for a young George Washington, who learns a number of valuable lessons that will serve him well two decades later. This project coincided with a PBS documentary series and the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War. B.P. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

October 10, 2005
The author of the award-winning, scholarly account of the French and Indian War Crucible of War
(2000) offers a scaled-down, popular version of that history in this companion volume to the January 2006 PBS documentary. It is an excellent introduction to a conflict that most Americans know little about, and that Winston Churchill called the first worldwide war. Anderson focuses on the North American theater, the outcome of which he claims "transformed the colonists' world forever" and, in effect, "made America." He shows how the conflict encouraged colonials "to conceive of themselves as equal partners in the empire," a concept that Britain did not share and that led inexorably to postwar strife and revolution. In a departure from earlier accounts, Anderson gives unprecedented coverage to the role of Native Americans in the struggle and demonstrates how the war paved the way for the American government's eventual "destruction or subjugation of native societies." Like the best popular historians, Anderson combines exhaustive research and an accessible prose style in a volume that should help rescue the French and Indian War from historical obscurity.