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The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
Audiobook7 hours

The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War

Written by Fred Anderson

Narrated by Simon Vance

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War-also known as the Seven Years' War-and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history. In January 2006, PBS will air The War That Made America, a four-part documentary about this epic conflict. Fred Anderson, the award-winning and critically acclaimed historian, has written the official tie-in to this exciting television event.

In The War That Made America, Anderson deftly shows how the expansion of the British colonies into French territory in the 1750s and the ongoing Native American struggle for survival would erupt into seven years of bloodshed and unrest spreading from the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the high courts of Europe, eventually overturning the balance of power on two continents and laying the groundwork for the American Revolution. Beautifully illustrated, richly detailed, and utterly compelling, this is the story of how America as we know it today emerged from a series of fractured colonies and warring tribes into a nation ripe for independence-and nobody tells this story better than Fred Anderson.

"Overall, this work is an excellent introduction to a complex, dynamic conflict that set the stage for the American Revolution. Recommended for all libraries."-Library Journal

"Lucid and swift-moving. With luck, Anderson's book will awaken interest in a critically important period in colonial history that, he laments, is about as familiar now as the Peloponnesian War."-Kirkus Review

"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."-Publishers Weekly

"...(Anderson's) writing is fluid, energetic, and gripping and his exploration of this period in early American history is unforgettable. His book is brought to life in this unabridged audio recording by Simon Vance, a British actor and skilled reader who has recorded more than 200 audiobooks."-Reviewed by Sheldon Ztvordokov, Large Print Reviews

"Simon Vance handles this complex narrative with a stately intelligence...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."-AudioFile Magazine
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 29, 2005
ISBN9781400171965
The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
Author

Fred Anderson

Fred Anderson is professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The best history of the French and Indian War I have read. The author summarizes the participants, events and ramifications of this complicated war using a style which will appeal both to novices and those with a particular interest in the subject. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Incredible read ! Living in Upstate New York where a fair amount of the engagements took place , I was pleasantly surprised by the reader that pronunciations were well done. I'd like to read more from the Author, a biography of Sir William Johnson would be a nice addition.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Professor Anderson's book gives us about as complete a recounting of the French And Indian War as can be accomplished in under 300 pages. In "The War That Made America" he has deftly related the events of this period with sound explanations of the struggles and motivations that brought participants from so many different social and political groups to this conflict. He thoroughly explains what was stake for the parties involved and the consequences for nations and leaders, with particular emphasis on the contributions of George Washington and how the expulsion of the French from North America and the imperial actions of the British crown created the events and climate that brought on the American Revolution. The most significant contribution of this book is how Mr. Anderson has made an understanding of the French And Indian War accessible in a volume aimed at the general reader of history. I highly recommend this book to other general history readers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A.K.A yeah, we didn't just think up the America revolution and start fighting. Read this book if you think a bunch of geezers simply got angry about taxes and then "thought up" the constitution and revolution. Awesome book, the only bad thing was how short it was.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a brief, well written, and sometime humorous account of the "accidental" world war kicked off by George Washington and an argument that this war led to a sense of separation between the British colonies in North America and their rulers in England. Some of the military situations involve so much chance, luck, guile, and subterfuge, that the book reads like a good novel, without sacrificing accuracy or historicity.

    A book that's worth the time, if you are interested in the French and Indian Wars, or want to understand the military, social, and continental underpinings of the American Revolutionary War.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fascinating history. I could hardly put this book down. After I read this I was hungry for more early American History.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A much more succinct and readable version of Fred Anderson's magnum opus CRUCIBLE OF WAR, an offshoot to the Heinz Foundation PBS production of the same name. Good contextual primer for anyone contemplating SYW books of a more specific and particular nature.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I really struggled getting through this book. That is probably more on me than the fault of the author. I genuinely wanted to know more about this war, but the short chapters and bouncing around between numerous historical figures whom I had never heard of made it tough for me to concentrate. It might just be that this is the end of the summer for me, but I found the chapters too short (some were only 4-5 pages) to keep me interested in what was happening. By the time I could start to enjoy learning about someone and his actions, the narrative would quickly move on to the next part. Not a bad book, just not for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In the early1750s three nations struggled for control of a very strategic piece of North American real estate: the Ohio County. They had very different plans for it. For England’s colonies spread along on the eastern coast of the continent it was land to be settled and farmed. For France it was a link between its trading outposts on the Mississippi and St. Lawrence Valleys, a vital transportation and commercial link with its Native American trading partners. For the Iroquois Confederacy it was land to fall back on and protect their culture from the encroachments of the Europeans. Yet at the same time, trade was also important because it provided metal tools and weapons. European trading partners were far more welcome than European farmers.Distrustful of the incursions and expeditions of Virginian land companies and Pennsylvanian traders, the governor-general of Canada, the marquis Duquesne, ordered a series of forts built between Lake Erie and the Forks of the Ohio River, a place now occupied by the city of Pittsburgh. The Virginia colonial government was incensed by the action, alerted London, and was given the authority, along with other colonial governments, to act against these encroachments. So an expedition led by a young but ambitious Virginia major, George Washington, was sent to the Forks of the Ohio to remove the French by force. The results were disastrous for the English, both militarily and diplomatically. It was the first blood spilled in what would become The Seven Years War, a war that stretched from North America to the east across an ocean to Europe, Africa, India and the Philippines. English historian and Prime Minister Winston Churchill referred to it as “the first world war.” The outcome in North America led first to English victory, and then, a decade later, to the revolt of its original colonies. A major theme of Anderson’s book is to show how the political and financial cost of the war with the French and Indians sowed the seeds of the war of revolution. This is a well written, well illustrated, and informative history.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There are positives and negatives with this book. On the plus side, you'd be hard pressed to find a more thorough account of the war in so few pages. While the book is just under 300 pages, the actual text takes up only about 200-225 after you consider the many, many portraits, maps, etc. (another plus, in my opinion).As for the negatives, I find Dr. Anderson's writing in many spots to be quite dry, bordering on boring. Counterintuitively, there were bits that I found riveting. Anderson can be hard to follow, as he jumps around quite a lot, between dates and locales.My biggest quibble with this book is the absence of footnotes. When reading a history book, I like to know where information is coming from, so I can check up on it. I find it dishonest (for lack of a better word) when historians don't use them.Informative, and you could certainly do worse, but my reservations about the book prevent me from enthusiastically recommending it. Therefore, it earns a mild recommendation.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    All that I previously remembered about the French and Indian War was that it preceded the American Revolution and that it was not a war between the French and Indians. This book is my kind of history. It's concise and readable. It points out the underlying trends and the key turning points. And it puts the outcomes into longer-term historical context. The French and Indian War was just one theater of a global conflict that shaped the world we have today. It was also a war that staged places and players for the Revolution that would follow just a decade later. Most notably, George Washington's future role derived from his experiences and initiative in the early stages of the French and Indian War.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Anderson asserts that the origins and progress of the French and Indian war of 1754-63, and hence the Seven Years War in Europe, were greatly influenced by the conflict between two native American groups. The Indians living around present day Pittsburgh were trying to avoid domination by the Iroquois tribes [the Six Nations] of New York. The Iroquois had acted as a buffer between the French in Canada and the English colonies from 1701 to 1754. The French wanted to prevent the English from settling the Ohio River Valley. The pacifist Quakers of Pennsylvania had contracted the defense of their colony to the Six Nations, who drove the Delawares into the Ohio Valley.The French built Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio River because of their fear of expansion by Virginia and Pennsylvania. Unbeknownst to the French, the English colonies were more rivals of one another than cooperating to settle the Ohio.The war began when Virginia sent a militia into the Ohio country, led by 23 year old George Washington. After an early victory over a small group of French troops, Washington's Delaware Indian allies killed and scalped all the French prisoners. The Indians precipitated the massacre in order to force the British to ally with them against the Iroquois. Washington was unable to take Fort Duquesne, and the massacre handed Louis XV the justification to declare war on England.Despite being greatly outnumbered by the British settlers in American, the war in America originally went well for the French, who were better than the English at using Indians as irregular troops. After two years of fighting, the English learned to dress and fight like Indians, to great effect. Moreover, the British managed to get the Iroquois to be neutral instead of pro-French, which allowed them a chance to attack Canada through Iroquoia [mostly northern and western New York]. After some English success, the French brought in Montcalm as their military leader. Although he was a fine soldier, he distrusted and disliked the Indians because of their savagery. He organized the defense of Quebec on traditional European war theory. The British were able to sieze Quebec because of Wolf's audacity in climbing the seemingly impregnable banks of the St. Lawrence to arrive at the Plains of Abraham.The French sued for peace, and the English were given all of Canada as the spoils of war. The British's Indian allies were not happy that the British did not allow them the spoils of war [capturing and then enslaving or killing all prisoners and taking all their property]. War with the Indians broke out shortly after peace with the French. The problem for the British was that they now had to defend a vastly greater territory, enhanced by Canada. The cost of defense became prohitive after the long war with France. The English attempted to tax their colonies for that cost. Those attempts at taxation, and the British efforts to prevent the expansion of Virginia and Pennsylvania into the Ohio country, led to the revolution by the colonies. The French and Indian War removed the French imperial presence from America and deprived the Indians of the ally they needed against the Anglo-American settlers who lusted after their lands. Britain's unexampled victory tempted the British government to imagine they could solve their postwar problems by exercising power over the colonists without restraint. But the war had inspired the colonists to see themselves as equal partners. It also encouraged Americans to see Indians as to be hated without reserve. In all these ways the war opened the door to Revolution and to the destruction of native societies west of the Appalachians. (JAB)