“
Conquered Into Liberty is beautiful narrative history: The author is a poetic and evocative storyteller. But the book is also valuable for the lessons it imparts and the heritage it conveys. The experience along the Great Warpath has seeped into the American character and helped prepare subsequent warriors to appreciate Washington’s famous declaration: ‘If you wish for peace, prepare for war.’ The Great Warpath’s legacy helps our soldiers know that one of the obligations of citizenship is to understand the character of war.” –Josiah Bunting,
The Washington Post“Mr. Cohen has thus produced the opposite of a dry-as-dust academic tome, and it is full of surprises. . . . As "Conquered Into Liberty" memorably shows, one territory of the country knew little peace for more than a century.”
—Wall Street Journal“A brilliant history of our least-known wars on our most-ignored frontier -- our northern border with Canada.”
–Doyle McManus
“A delightful-to-read piece of American history.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"Cohen, among America’s leading defense analysts and military historians combines his skills in this comprehensively researched, well-written analysis of the international conflict that more than any other shaped the U.S. way of war. . . . Even issues of contemporary concern, the problems of conventional forces facing irregular opponents and the belief that an adversary can be 'conquered into liberty,' were first confronted in these battles, as Cohen demonstrates in this original and illuminating study."
—Publishers Weekly
“There has been no dearth of books that have analyzed America’s wars, primarily from a military and political viewpoint. Yet Eliot Cohen has mined an unexplored third vein of influence, stemming from its pre-colonial and frontier past, which still echo today. Conquered Into Liberty is an insightful and creative new exploration of the distinctively American approach to warfare.”
—Henry A. Kissinger
“Eliot Cohen’s Conquered into Liberty provides an illuminating account of America’s early struggles in the northeast border region from one of our nation’s foremost experts on military affairs. Insightful and penetrating in its analysis, this is not just a remarkable work of history; it traces the roots of the institutions and culture that continue to shape America’s armed forces in our own time.”
—Condoleezza Rice, Professor of Political Economy, Stanford University and Sixty-Sixth Secretary of State of the United States
"Eliot Cohen has written a brilliant account of a little known, but important, period in our country's history. It is a riveting work that masterfully describes how pre-Revolutionary War events shaped our nation's approach to war. It is a must read for all Americans."
—General Anthony C. Zinni USMC (Ret.)
"Conquered into Liberty is a powerful and ingenious history--a story of prolonged, tribal war set within ideological conflict and superpower competition; of intense battles of regulars, militias, indigenous forces, and proxies including savage terror, kidnapping, and worse; and of coalition operations where strategic aims often did not match resources allocated and actual war requirements were not understood in distant capitals. Cohen’s account at once explains an important period of American history and puts today’s wars in proper context."
—LTG (Retired) Jim Dubik, Senior Fellow, the Institute for the Study of War and former Commanding General of Multi-National Security and Transition Command and NATO Training Mission, Iraq 2007-2008
"Eliot Cohen is the David McCullough of the American frontier. He has written a fascinating history of heroes, rogues and rugged individualists who almost united Canada and America. Cohen captivates the reader by recounting the battles and dissecting the 'what if’s?' of history that determined the courses both of America and Canada. A rich, page-turning tale of war and survival, of ambition and empire, of men who sought adventure and refused defeat."
—Bing West, bestselling author of The Village, The Strongest Tribe and The Wrong War
