Share <Embed>

Buy New

$22.50

List Price: $25.00
Save: $2.50 (10%)

+ $7.98 shipping

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

This item ships to Finland. Want it Wednesday, Feb. 19? Order within and choose AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping at checkout. Learn more

Deliver to Finland

Buy Used

$12.95

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Deliver to Finland

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by Growing Knowledge

Fulfilled by Amazon

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$22.21
+ $6.79 shipping

Sold by: TheProductsHub

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

Follow the Author

Fred Anderson

Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 Paperback – January 23, 2001

by Fred Anderson (Author)

196 ratings

See all 9 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$16.49

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

$62.14

$6.27

Paperback

"Please retry"

$22.50

$16.93

$4.01

Audio CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$39.99

—

Unknown Binding

"Please retry"

$83.46

$26.80

In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years' War–long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution–takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain’s empire and to sow the seeds of its eventual dissolution.

Beginning with a skirmish in the Pennsylvania backcountry involving an inexperienced George Washington, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson, and the ill-fated French emissary Jumonville, Anderson reveals a chain of events that would lead to world conflagration. Weaving together the military, economic, and political motives of the participants with unforgettable portraits of Washington, William Pitt, Montcalm, and many others, Anderson brings a fresh perspective to one of America’s most important wars, demonstrating how the forces unleashed there would irrevocably change the politics of empire in North America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Vivid and memorable…eventful and fast-paced."–The New York Times Book Review

From the Inside Flap

In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years' War-long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution-takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain's empire and to sow the seeds of its eventual dissolution.
Beginning with a skirmish in the Pennsylvania backcountry involving an inexperienced George Washington, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson, and the ill-fated French emissary Jumonville, Anderson reveals a chain of events that would lead to world conflagration. Weaving together the military, economic, and political motives of the participants with unforgettable portraits of Washington, William Pitt, Montcalm, and many others, Anderson brings a fresh perspective to one of America's most important wars, demonstrating how the forces unleashed there would irrevocably change the politics of empire in North America.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Paperback: 912 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (January 23, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375706364
ISBN-13: 978-0375706363
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.8 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 186 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #115 in French History (Books)
- #71 in U.S. Colonial Period History
- #278 in Great Britain History (Books)

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Customer reviews

186 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Jeanne M Powell

I love well written history

August 27, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I love well written history. This account reads as interestingly as a novel. I would say it stands up to some very notable and well known histories I have read such as; William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Son of the Morning Star about George Armstrong Custer, the Bruce Catton Civil war histories and so forth. This is a magnificent work on 3 fronts: 1) The interworkings of the British government during a near world wide war with France over the colonies of North America and elsewhere, as well as the continent of Europe. 2) The effect on the American colonists and their views as being equal as English colonists to every Englishman in Britain with the same rights and privileges - which the government of Britain and the King did not agree on (which made the American Revolution inevitable). 3) The fascinating differences between how the British and French dealt with the various Indian nations, and the repercussions of that on trade, Indian attacks and war with the colonists, the colonists expanding the colonies westward, and so much more. Vivid details are included, famous people included in the narrative are many, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, famous Colonial Governors, British generals, Pontiac, and many of the other famous chiefs of Indian nations. It's the history of England, Canada, America and the French and Indian Wars with a touch of Last of the Mohicans. A very very fascinating read.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Compulsion Versus Cooperation

December 30, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a gem of a book if you're interested in this era of history; a lengthy, detailed and very cogent account of The Seven Years War in North America and its aftermath. Specifically, the author focuses on the two types of approaches the British used in dealing with the American colonies; the first under Braddock and Loudoun which attempted compulsion, was counter-productive and simply didn't work and the second, instituted by William Pitt through Jeffrey Amherst, which alternatively requested assistance from the colonies and was very effective. William Pitt's genius in this instance simply consisted of the insight into human nature that, if you ask someone for their assistance in an endeavor rather than order them to do something, you're more likely to get the cooperation and help you seek. Which is what he did with the colonial legislatures and got their enthusiastic assistance in the Empire's war against France which ultimately led to Britain's stunning victory in North America.

Unfortunately for Britain and its empire in North America, after the death of George II and the fall of Pitt's Ministry, the British under Grenville and George III reverted to type and again tried to compel the colonists to pay taxes and duties which resulted in the same resistance they experienced in the early years of the war and eventually the rebellion that produced the American state, independent of Britain. This is the leitmotif of this story.

There's a lot more here, to wit; the different approaches of the French and the English(and different commanders and officials, both sides) to relations with the Indians(N. America), the social dynamics and social differences between American and British society that led to tension between the provincial troops and British aristocratic military officers, the attitudes of (again) the British aristocratic officers toward colonial troops and Americans in general(which again persisted and contributed to the final rupture between the two societies), the horrific nature of British military discipline(which colonials simply would not tolerate), the varying levels of competence and tactics of the different commanders(English and French), patterns of trade both between Europeans and Indians and America and the West Indies, an overview of the war in Europe playing in the background so to speak, the war as it played out in India, Africa the West Indies and elsewhere, the war at sea et al.

One comes across specific tidbits here and there(sometimes in the copious notes) that enliven the book, i.e. Abercromby's ill-conceived frontal assault in his campaign on Lake George that resulted in disaster and huge losses. The reader can't help but feel pity for the British regulars forced to attack in this manner, especially given the fact that there were easier and more effective alternatives readily to hand. It brings to mind Wellington's remark: "They came on in the same old way and we stopped them in the same old way." Then there is the footnote that explains the British advantage in trade with the Indians, i.e. that British manufactured items cost one quarter what their counterparts the French were trading and demonstrates the growing British manufacturing prowess at this time.

Altogether, an excellent work and well worth the read. Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Marc Lichtman

The Law of Unintended Consequences

September 18, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

“The close of the French and Indian War in 1763 ushered in the prerevolutionary period. All the major European powers participated in this Seven Years' War, which resembled the world wars of the twentieth century in its consequences. It had tremendous effects upon the combatants, whether they were among the victors or the vanquished.

“Most importantly, the war introduced profound changes in the relations between England and her North American colonies. Both were struck by a postwar depression, burdensome debts, heavy taxes, and mass discontent.

“England had a national debt of 130 million pounds sterling, which cost the people four-and-a-half million pounds a year in interest. Its ruling classes tried to unload an increasing share of these costs of the war upon the colonists by imposing many new taxes upon their trade, beginning with the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765. These measures were designed not only to raise much-needed revenue, but to aid British merchants and manufacturers at the expense of their overseas rivals….” —George Novack, Marxist historian and philosopher in “Was the Revolution Necessary” from Americas Revolutionary Heritage

War often has unintended consequences, and these are not infrequently revolution. The counterrevolutionary war started by the slaveowners’ Confederacy led to a revolutionary war abolishing slavery (unfortunately not giving the freed slaves protection, much less an economic base).

The Russo-Japanese War produced the Russian Revolution of 1905, the “dress rehearsal” of the two in 1917, which wouldn’t have happened without the First World inter-imperialist slaughter. That revolution sped the overthrow of the Kaiser, and a situation from at least 1918–23 of possible socialist revolution in Germany. There was a short-lived Soviet Hungary in 1919, which came to power peacefully and legally, but which was overthrown by brutal capitalist force. The example of the Russian Revolution spread to China and might have succeeded then if not for the Stalinist policy of subordination to the Kuomintang. World War II unleashed another burst of revolutions, despite the best efforts of the Stalinists to restrain them.

The book is a serious study of the Seven Years’ (French and Indian) War. It doesn’t deal extensively with the European part of the war, which is OK with me; it gives enough so you know how they connect. It’s at it’s best in the British Parliamentary battles; and then at the end of the war, why the American Revolution happened, although there’s much I disagree with there.

Anderson does explain the important part that American Indians played and the importance of the British/American diplomacy that won them to their side, despite the contempt that most officers—British and American—had for them.

When it’s essential, Anderson gives us good portraits of major figures like William Pitt, Jeffery Amherst, and George Washington, but most of the time stands rather aloof from them.

The book fails to address the question of why Britain won such a big victory in the war. England had gone further in destroying feudal relations and building capitalism than France, where despite some capitalist development, feudalism was still dominant. It took a revolution to change that; one inspired by the American Revolution. I haven’t read The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714 (Second Edition) (Norton Library History of England) since college, but Trotsky wrote in Where is Britain Going? as follows:

“With the heavy hammer of military force, Oliver Cromwell forged, on the anvil of civil war, this same national character, which in the course of two and a half centuries has secured the gigantic advantages of the English bourgeoisie in the struggle for world supremacy, in order later, at the end of the nineteenth century, to reveal itself as too conservative even from the point of view of capitalist development.”

Fred Anderson writes:

“The most important event to occur in eighteenth-century North America, the Seven Years’ War (or as the colonists called it, the French and Indian War) figures in most Americans’ consciousness of the past as a kind of hazy backdrop to the Revolution. As citizens of a nation created by an act of collective secession from the British empire, we Americans have always tended to take as our point of reference the thirteen rebelling colonies, not the empire as a whole—or the North American continent.

“This perspective has generally limited our ability to see the continuities between our pre-Revolutionary past and the rest of our history. Coming to grips with the Seven Years’ War as an event that decisively shaped American history, as well as the histories of Europe and the Atlantic world in general, may therefore help us begin to understand the colonial period as something more than a quaint mezzotint prelude to our national history.

“For indeed, if viewed not from the perspective of Boston or Philadelphia, but from Montréal or Vincennes, St. Augustine or Havana, Paris or Madrid—or, for that matter, Calcutta or Berlin—the Seven Years’ War was far more significant than the War of American Independence.”

I'm all for treating American history as part of world history, and against "American exceptionalism." Yet, here I disagree; revolutionary wars are far more important, and for the entire world, not just for the countries they happen in. The American Revolution led to the French and Haitian Revolutions and influenced politics throughout the world in a way that wars over land and dynasties never can. (See Democracy and Revolution and again, ‘America’s Revolutionary Heritage.’ For a view of the plebian role in the French Revolution, see Class struggle in the first French republic: Bourgeois and bras nus 1793-1795 by Daniel Guérin. For the Haitian Revolution see The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James).

V.I. Lenin wrote in his 1918 “Letter to American Workers”:

“The history of modern civilized America opens with one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few among the large number of wars of conquest that were caused, like the present imperialist war, by squabbles among kings, landowners and capitalists over the division of seized lands and stolen profits. It was a war of the American people against English robbers who subjected America and held it in colonial slavery as these “civilized” blood-suckers are now subjecting and holding colonial slavery hundreds of millions of people in India, Egypt and in all corners of the world.”

The last few chapters and the epilogue contain the most serious analysis of the roots of the American Revolution, and while there’s much I agree with, there’s also the most I disagree with. The capitalist expansionism of George Washington’s day (wonderfully described by Anderson, much of it in Washington’s own words) had nothing to do with imperialism.

Imperialism is the stage of capitalism we live in today where a few wealthy countries control most of the world and brutally exploit both the labor and natural resources of the rest of the world. And the death toll from both the inter-imperialist wars and the wars against the underdeveloped countries continues the bloodshed…. (see Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism - A Popular Outline: Unabridged with original tables and footnotes (Aziloth Books)).

Anderson writes:

“The Peace of Paris obliged George III to extend his protection to his new subjects, Indian and French alike, and he and his ministers (as the Proclamation of 1763 attested) took this obligation quite seriously.”

But anyone familiar with the history of Canada knows that whether under the British Empire or independent Canada (with the Queen still head of state), this has never been the case. In the past few years we can see for the first time that an independent Quebec is unlikely because years of struggle have finally chipped away at the inequalities and forced Canada to become close to a genuinely bilingual country. The Indians (there called First Nations) are still living in abysmal conditions, and only struggle against the government has brought them any gains.

Michel Dugré writes in “Land, Labor, and the Canadian Socialist Revolution” in New International no 6: The Second Assassination of Maurice Bishop:

“The American revolution of 1775–83 constituted the first serious threat to the domination of the intertwined class of British merchants and landowners in Canada. The revolutionaries, gathered around a new American merchant and landed bourgeoisie, sought to free the thirteen colonies from British domination and to forge a new, independent nation.

“The peasants of Québec, locked in their struggle against the British landlords and merchants, expressed great sympathy for the revolution for democracy and freedom from colonial oppression that was unfolding to their south. The American revolutionaries worked hard to find allies among the people of Québec, pledging to defend the linguistic and cultural rights of the French-speaking majority and condemning Britain’s perpetuation of the corvée system of forced labor. American revolutionary leader Benjamin Franklin traveled to Montréal in May 1776 to call for support to the anticolonial rebellion. The American independence fighters sent letters and manifestos explaining the goals of their democratic revolution to the people of Québec.

“The Catholic church stepped up pressure to force the peasants of Québec to support the British crown. The landlords tried to enlist their tenants to confront American troops. But all these counterrevolutionary efforts were in vain. ‘The Canadian peasantry,’ pointed out the British governor of Québec during the American revolution, ‘not only deserted their duty but numbers of them have taken up arms against the crown.’ It is estimated that 500 Québécois joined the revolutionary Continental Army.

“The American revolution gave rise to the first of numerous conscription crises in Québec. But it did not stop the British merchants from consolidating their domination.

“The British rulers’ fierce opposition to the American revolution also left its imprint on the development of agriculture in Upper Canada (present-day Ontario). To avoid the spread of republican ideas, the British authorities consciously tried to build up a colonial landed aristocracy by ceding immense amounts of land to a few big landholders. Large numbers of American Loyalists from the former thirteen colonies—the ‘contras’ of that day—fled to Canada, and many were granted substantial plots of land in return for their loyalty to Britain….”

There's much more. And I learned a lot more from this than from the entire 'Penguin History of Canada.'

Only Marxism is able to explain how despite the brutalities of capitalism it was in relation to feudalism a hugely progressive system. And even right after writing the ‘Communist Manifesto’ Marx supported the 1848 revolutions, which were for national unification and against monarchy--for democratic republics. And likewise, he supported the second bourgeois-democratic revolution in the US; he and Engels explaining everywhere they could why the Union, even before announcing it, was fighting a war against slavery.

In the first three chapters of 'America's Revolutionary Heritage,' also published separately as 'Genocide Against the Indians: Its Role in the Rise of U.S. Capitalism,' George Novack brilliantly takes up this contradiction between the brutality and progressiveness of capitalism.

Socialism wasn’t a possibility in the developed countries until the completion of the bourgeois democratic revolutions. In the underdeveloped countries these revolutions are frequently closely linked, as in Cuba (see The First and Second Declarations of Havana: Manifestos of revolutionary struggle in the Americas adopted by the Cuban people).

But capitalism ceases to be progressive and blocks the path of worldwide development and industrialization, not for private profits, but in the interests of all humanity. While a handful of people control most of the wealth of the world, the rest (even is the US) is forced into misery. In the end the most progressive part of capitalism is its creation of its gravediggers—the working class (see The Communist Manifesto).

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: colonial america, british colonies, great lakes history

5 star		75%
4 star		16%
3 star		4%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy

Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account	Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Handpicked Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources

Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services	Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics

CreateSpace Indie Print Publishing Made Easy	DPReview Digital Photography	East Dane Designer Men's Fashion	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities

IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital Publishing Made Easy	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing

Ring Smart Home Security Systems	eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Subscribe with Amazon Discover & try subscription services	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Second Chance Pass it on, trade it in, give it a second life

Buy New

$22.50

Buy Used

$12.95

Other Sellers on Amazon

Follow the Author

Similar authors to follow

Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 Paperback – January 23, 2001

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Inside Flap

Product details

Related video shorts (0)

Be the first video

Customer reviews

186 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Buy New $22.50

Buy Used $12.95

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Follow the Author

Similar authors to follow

Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 Paperback – January 23, 2001

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Inside Flap

Product details

Related video shorts (0)

Be the first video

Customer reviews

186 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Buy New

$22.50

Buy Used

$12.95