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

Fred Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2000

In this engrossing narrative of the great military conflagration of the mid-eighteenth century, Fred Anderson transports us into the maelstrom of international rivalries. With the Seven Years' War, Great Britain decisively eliminated French power north of the Caribbean — and in the process destroyed an American diplomatic system in which Native Americans had long played a central, balancing role — permanently changing the political and cultural landscape of North America.

Anderson skillfully reveals the clash of inherited perceptions the war created when it gave thousands of American colonists their first experience of real Englishmen and introduced them to the British cultural and class system. We see colonists who assumed that they were partners in the empire encountering British officers who regarded them as subordinates and who treated them accordingly. This laid the groundwork in shared experience for a common view of the world, of the empire, and of the men who had once been their masters. Thus, Anderson shows, the war taught George Washington and other provincials profound emotional lessons, as well as giving them practical instruction in how to be soldiers.

Depicting the subsequent British efforts to reform the empire and American resistance — the riots of the Stamp Act crisis and the nearly simultaneous pan-Indian insurrection called Pontiac's Rebellion — as postwar developments rather than as an anticipation of the national independence that no one knew lay ahead (or even desired), Anderson re-creates the perspectives through which contemporaries saw events unfold while they tried to preserve imperial relationships.

Interweaving stories of kings and imperial officers with those of Indians, traders, and the diverse colonial peoples, Anderson brings alive a chapter of our history that was shaped as much by individual choices and actions as by social, economic, and political forces.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Histories of the American Revolution tend to start in 1763, the end of the Seven Year's War, a worldwide struggle for empire that pitted France against England in North America, Europe, and Asia. Fred Anderson, who teaches history at the University of Colorado, takes the story back a decade and explains the significance of the conflict in American history. Demonstrating that independence was not inevitable or even at first desired by the colonists, he shows how removal of the threat from France was essential before Americans could develop their own concepts of democratic government and defy their imperial British protectors. Of great interest is the importance of Native Americans in the conflict. Both the French and English had Indian allies; France's defeat ended a diplomatic system in which Indian nations, especially the 300-year-old Iroquois League, held the balance between the colonial powers. In a fast-paced narrative, Anderson moves with confidence and ease from the forests of Ohio and battlefields along the St. Lawrence to London's House of Commons and the palaces of Europe. He makes complex economic, social, and diplomatic patterns accessible and easy to understand. Using a vast body of research, he takes the time to paint the players as living personalities, from George III and George Washington to a host of supporting characters. The book's usefulness and clarity are enhanced by a hundred landscapes, portraits, maps, and charts taken from contemporary sources. Crucible of War is political and military history at its best; it never flags and is a pleasure to read. --John Stevenson

From Publishers Weekly

From 1756 to 1763, the Ohio Valley was the site of a historic contest between the French and the English, both of whom wanted to add this fertile soil to their colonial holdings. In this elegant new account of the Seven Years' War, University of Colorado historian Anderson demonstrates that the conflict was more than just a peripheral squabble that anticipated the American Revolution. Not only did the war decisively alter relations among the French, the English and the Native American allies of the two powers, who for decades had played the English and French off one another to their own advantage, but just as critical, argues Anderson, the war also changed the character of British imperialism, with the mother country trying to reshape the terms of empire and the colonists' place in it. (It was the British victory of 1763, for example, that led the British to post a permanent, peacetime army in America and to support those troops with new taxes.) Indeed, Anderson shows that familiar events of the mid-1760s, like the Stamp Act and Tea Act crises, are better understood as postwar rather than prewar events: they did not "reflect a movement toward revolution so much as an effort to define the imperial relationship." This volume, then, will be of interest not just to Seven Years' War buffs, but also to those interested in the entire Revolutionary era. Anderson's magisterial study--like his earlier book, A People's Army--is essential reading on an often ignored war. 90 illus. and 9 maps.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 912 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (February 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375406425
• ISBN-13: 978-0375406423
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

205 of 210 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The View from Lake George, April 7, 2000

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Thomas M. Sullivan (Lake George, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (Hardcover)

As an inveterate history buff who happens to live about 1000 yards from Fort William Henry in Lake George, New York (and, incidentally, dined last evening at The Montcalm Restaurant), I make it my business to read every book about the French and Indian War I can lay my hands on. But having read so many which have proved either repetitious, superficial, or both, I have grown increasingly wary of new and ever more "comprehensive" histories of the war. To this point, the very best to my mind remained Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" which is as fresh and readable today as it was when published over 100 years ago. Then along comes Fred Anderson's "Crucible of War", and I guess I have to start changing my mind. The book excels in three respects. First, Anderson is a superb writer, as close as one will find to the Great Parkman. Second, it abounds with terrific maps and illustrations, many of which I have not seen before, from the Clements Collection at the University of Michigan. Third, and most importantly, Anderson does the best job of anyone I know in justifying the thesis that it was this war, and not the Revolution, which was the most significant conflict of the 18th century from "America's" standpoint because it lay the foundation for the inevtiable schism between the Colonies and the Mother Country. Time and again, Anderson demonstrates how almost every Colonial rejection of British hegemony during this period sowed the seeds which bloomed in April, 1775. An absolutely top-drawer read that herewith becomes a must for every serious student of American history and of this fascinating war.

77 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Legitimate Classic, May 3, 2000

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Mark Wylie (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (Hardcover)

Fred Anderson's stated goal in writing "Crucible of War" was to produce "a book accessible to general readers that will also satisfy...historians' scholarly expectations." I am pleased to report that he attains that goal as completely as anyone could reasonably expect.

Anderson's subject is a relatively small slice of US history--the conflict known variously as the French and Indian War or the Seven Years War, along with the war's immediate aftermath. His narrative is highly informative. He describes how isolated skirmishes on what was then America's western frontier escalated into a true global war, involving every major European power. He convincingly explains how England eventually came to triumph over her rivals, and to inherit much of France's erstwhile colonial empire. Although his focus in on North America, he does not neglect events in Europe. He then shows how events like the Stamp Act Crisis and Pontiac's Rebellion were inextricably linked to the war and its outcome.

Anderson deserves credit for his skillful blend of diplomatic, military, economic and social history into a coherent whole--he should be a model for other scholars in this respect. Also noteworthy is his clear identification of the interest of the four main groups involved in the North American conflict--the French and their Canadian colonists, the English, the American colonists, and the Native Americans--and his untangling of the conflicts both within and between these groups.

While specialists may end up quibbling with some of the details of Anderson's interpretations, he seems to me to have amply demonstrated his claim that the French and Indian War was an extremely important influence on the revolutionary events of the following decades. "Crucible of War" is a genuine classic of historical writing.

75 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reappraisal of a "Forgotten" War, March 2, 2000

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Peter Savage "seriously" (Near Portland, ME USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (Hardcover)

This is less of a book than an event. Probably the most interesting history book since Schama's "Citizens," and for the same reason: it tells you things you'd probably never otherwise have known, and provides context for them.

While the Seven Years War has always figured front and center in European minds, it's been overshadowed in the US. But, it was the first real 'world war'. It built the British Empire, and sowed the seeds for the downfall of the western part of it, a mere ten years later. Anderson knits the complex events together with great skill, and follows the stories of the many seedy, greedy and incompetent players (along with the patriots and professionals) as they try to first turn back the tide of the French, and then figure out a way to conquer Canada. The insights into the Indian aspects of the war are remarkable. There's a lot of "battles and generals" writing, but he does not neglect the stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians.

A lot of famous folk don't come across too well in Anderson's account. His penetrating comments on Washington and Wolfe won't make him a lot of friends, but, so be it.

You'll come away from this knowing far more about the true reasons for the Revolution, which was almost an inevitable sequel to this conflict. I'd recommend reading it in conjunction with Kevin Phillip's "The Cousins' War."