Rating: 
Summary: Priming the pump for the American Revolution
Review: "Few reveries haunt history professors more insistently than the dream of writing a book accessible to general readers that will also satisfy their fellow historians' scholarly expectations ... I must admit that I wrote this book because of it." Thus begins Fred Anderson's prodigious study of the effects of the Seven Years' War, and its immediate aftermath, on the prospects for the British Empire in North America.Roughly the first half deals mainly with the military conflicts of the Seven Years' War that involved Great Britain, Spain, Austria, Prussia and Russia, and focuses primarily (because the title says "British North America") on the French and Indian War, which is the term used in United States history to differentiate the North American theater of the conflict from the whole. Anderson never states the obvious, which is the fact that, compared to the size of the European battles measured by numbers of deaths and troops involved, the North American "battles" were hardly more than mere scuffles. However, while the European clashes resulted in nothing more than a maintenance of the continental pre-war status quo, those across the Pond cost France her North American holdings, and transformed Britain into the world-class empire that the term "Britannia" brings to mind. In describing the North American confrontations, Anderson spans the period from 1754, when an inexperienced Lieutenant Colonel George Washington got ensnared in a massacre of French regulars at Jumonville's Glen, to 1760, when Anglo and Colonial forces captured Quebec and Montreal. Perspective is maintained with frequent digressions to the seesaw war in Europe and the policy endeavors of kings George II and III and their chief ministers, among whom William Pitt and George Grenville predominated. I particularly enjoyed Anderson's perspective of General Wolfe's startling conquest of Quebec. Some might criticize this as unsupported revisionism. However, in the absence of any conclusive facts to indicate the contrary, a certain zest is added to the military debate. And, in the final reckoning, what difference does it make? Beginning the volume's second half, it's 1763, the war has ended, the treaties of Paris and Hubertusburg have been signed, and the British government is casting about for ways to make its new empire, and especially the American colonies, pay for the mother country's support. Thus, Parliament commences passing those measures that put the unrepresented colonists in a snit, and which are the starting point for most literary examinations of the Revolutionary Period: the American Duties (Sugar) Act, the Stamp Act, the Currency Act, and the Quartering Act. Anderson's well taken point - indeed, the working hypothesis of his whole book - is that the Colonies' ultimate ungrateful, Bad Attitude had its genesis not beginning in 1763, but in 1754. Simply put, the Seven Years' War forced the Colonies and the Mother Country to make common cause, and this familiarity became the breeding ground for future disenchantments. To achieve the author's intent quoted at the beginning of this review, it's almost a given that his narrative would have to be a relative overview uncluttered by the detailed minutiae demanded by some hardboiled historians. Perhaps the two goals are incompatible. Indeed, I may have learned more than I ever wanted to know about the disastrous Stamp Act. However, while the author could have paraphrased with more brevity this and certain other aspects of the North American historical record - the activities of individual Indian chiefs, the internal squabbles of the various colonial governments, the greedy plots of land speculators - he did, in my opinion, admirably achieve his design. Certainly, THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR is long enough. Indeed, because it's a sober work based on extensive research and not a thriller, it took me almost eight weeks of evening reading on the couch to digest its 746 pages. However, I remained interested from beginning to end, and never got bogged down. Anderson's book is a fine historical composition for anyone interested in the period. Lastly, I want to quote Anderson's delightful characterization of the sixty-year old Benjamin Franklin when the latter testified before the British Parliament in 1766 against the Stamp Act: "... he danced through the interrogation like a cocky teenager waltzing down Philadelphia's Market Street with a Dutch dollar in his pocket and a great puffy roll tucked under each arm." I loved it!
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing read, if long read
Review: As a writer, Fred Anderson is accessible and well researched. Sometimes history writing makes these two traits seem mutually exclusive, but not in his wonderful study of British and Colonial relations amidst the Seven Years War. Anderson's main thesis is that the Seven Year's War (known more popularly as the French and Indian War) did not need to lead to the American Revolution, but was a significant and major turning point in its own right. The latter is fair enough, but I'm not sure that Anderson, despite his claims, is breaking really new ground with regard to not necessarily seeing the French and Indian War and our Revolution as a seemless progression to American Independence. His analysis at the end of the book as to why this was not necessarily so is pretty thin, although the coverage of the events themselves certainly let the reader understand that there were several possible break points where Parlimentary action or policy changes could have kept America as part of the British Empire at least past 1776. What Anderson has done is written a thorough history of the conflict. He takes a wholistic approach and in fact focuses on war management and policy in more detail than the military campaigns. They do not necessarily get short shrift, but they are not evaluated in the kind of minute detail that military histories provide. This is appropriate. As Anderson shows, the conflict was as much driven by the chess game played in European capitals and between Parliment and the Colonial assemblies as it was by battlefield developments. The book reminded me of Middlekauf's "Glorious Revolution," a series in the Oxford history of the United States that gave great background and discussion to causes and English debate over our Revolution in additon to telling the story as written by our troops. Anderson shows how the character of the relationship between England and the Colonies was much different while the French held Canada. France brillintly used its indian allies in ways the English never considered, treating them as co-equals and using them to harass the American frontier in order to protect their penetration into the Ohio Valley and Illinois country. While this menace existed, the colonists were united in desperately wanting British troop protection. The British-Franco rivalry, always upon a tinderbox during this time in Europe, only needed an incident to ignite it anew into war. That the incident was provided by troops under George Washington's command in Pennsylvania is a delicious irony of history. The reslutling war was a struggle between French and English troops, between various Indian tribes allied to or caught in the middle of the combatants and between Parliment and the Colonial assemblies regarding funding and local support for the war. As history would show, the debates and various strategies employed by Parliment to secure colonial financial and manpower contributions to the effort would set the stage for the Stamp Act, Quatering Act and other post war Parlimentary initiated crises that paved the way for American Independence. Along the way we meet wonderful characters. An early George Washington in search of glory and wealth via militia command. The indominable William Pitt, parlimentarian master and stragegic visionary whose management of the war effort led to a stunning military victory and close colonial cooperation with the mother country. Lord Grenville, who followed Pitt and in a short time reversed the policies that had brought the colonies close to Parliment and accepting of Pitt's imperial order. George III who in a pique of personality sacked Pitt for no other reason than to placate opposition forces that had gathered around him while he was waiting for a vacancy on the throne. All in all, its a big story that is well written, lucid and engaging. For a big book, it has short paragraphs, which help keep the pace moving along nicely. For anyone interested in the French and Indian War and the evolving nature of American identity as well as the path toward Revolution, this is a good choice
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: By far the finest, most incredibly complete account of the Seven Years War I have read todate, treating England's conflict and awesome achievement as a massive global effort, as opposed to just our North American version, The French and Indian War. I better understand the role of this intense event in the slow formation of colonial American resistance to Britain. Independance took almost 30 years to occur and the subject matter, (the pros and the cons, the rights and the wrongs (pun intended)) is dealt with impecably. As you read this excellent work, you can almost tick off on your fingertips the incredible British blunders which had to eventually result in and force American independance. The American Revolution did not occur because colonial Americans did not support their King, but rather, because their King failed his colonists so very, very miserably.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe this was the original World War
Review: Crucible of War, by Fred Anderson, is an all-encompassing analysis of the Seven Years war and its effect on North American politics in the post war era. It is this matter of "post war" that makes up the main thesis of the book. Anderson argues that all those things we learned about in grade school social studies about the pre-revolutionary years (stamp act...) are properly considered part of the post-war years of the Seven Years war, and that way that war unfolded in North America and elsewhere led to the breach between England and its colonies. Most of the book, though, is a traditional survey of the war, primarily in North America. Anderson shows how the war started up, and covers the events in as much detail as anyone other than a specialist could want. It's a rather exciting story, actually. One could easily refer to this war as the first truly "world war". It was, after all, fought on several continents, and involved a number of countries. Equal attention is paid to the military and political aspects of the war, particularly to English politics and not so much to the French. We see how the colonial attitude changed over time as policy towards the colonies changed during the conflict. As the war ends in North America and eventually everywhere, we move entirely into the political situation as England attempts to pay for the war. Also covered are the always-delicate relations between colonists, English, and the Indian population, both those allied with England and with France. On the whole, it was a very complicated situation, and Anderson covers it clearly. In the end, we do see that North America was a crucible of war, both the Seven Years war, and the Revolution as a natural response to that war.
Rating:
Summary: Deceptively easy on the eyes and brain
Review: Fred Anderson states in the Introduction his hope that he's fulfilled his ambition to write a book that combines both narrative flair with scholarly rigour, melding the surface political events of the period to the underlying competing social perspectives and economic constraints of the age. I hazard that he's succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. This is magisterial history writing of the highest order. It is rare enough in any discipline to find scholars who can match their theoretical and analytical skills to a well-honed command of the English language together with an almost intuitive ability for pithy summation, the well-chosen character description and the seemingly-effortless capacity to journey from the personal to the epic. What's interesting is that, as the book progresses, so you can see and feel Fred Anderson's writing gaining confidence. He starts well, and just gets better and better. This ranks alongside David Potter's IMPENDING CRISIS, the works of Richard Hofstadter, Don Fehrenbacher, James M. McPherson and, in another field of history, Jonathan Sumption's yet-to-be-completed history of the Hundred Years War.
Buy it. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Account of the Seven Years War
Review: Fred Anderson's "Crucible of War" is an engrossing, detailed, and engaging account of the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian War to most Americans. The book is thoroughly detailed in its handling of not only the military aspects of the period, but also of the political maneuverings on both sides of the Atlantic. Anderson's narrative also discusses the shift in how both the French and English generals and politicians in North America essentially "co-opted" one another's treatment of and engagement with the Indian tribes and nations.
An earlier reviewer commented that Anderson presents 'not quite revisionist' view that there is no link between this period and American Revolutionary period. I finished the book with an entirely different perspective. Prior to the Seven Years War, the colonies had been more or less left by Britain to tend to their own affairs. However, as Great Britain struggled with the enormous costs of waging a world war and the subsequent peace, she began looking towards the colonies as a source revenue as well as taking a more active role in colonial governance. In the colonial reaction to Proclamation of 1763, the Stamp Act, and Townsend Acts, I saw a "revolution" in the colonial mindset that began to question the relationship between Great Britain and her colonies.
One take-away I had from the book was a correction of my long-held misconception that the "French and Indian War" was one war. In fact, at the very least, the argument could easily be made that these were two separate wars, an Anglo-French War (w/Indian allies on both sides) followed by an Anglo-Indian War(s).
I truly appreciated the detail and effort the Mr. Anderson obviously put forth in the text and believe it has helped me gain a more comprehensive understanding of the tumultuous period and events that led to the founding of our great nation.
Rating:
Summary: British glory shared
Review: Highly readable and highly recommended account of the Seven Years' War in the crucible of North America, involving the brutal and exhausting confrontations between the British Redcoats, French troops de la marine and the American Indian. However, this book is not your typical and, I have to admit perennially enjoyable account of British Glory and Empire Building at the expense of France. No. Read the title and I can tell you this is most definitely an American academic writing an American history of what is argued by this author as an essentially American war. In its favour this makes for both a revealing and detailed account upon the pretty much indispensable role the Indians and colonials had upon the successful British prosecution of the war. If perhaps not winning the war for Britain then surely preventing it's defeat, the author puts emphasis on factors such as the Indian nations siding with the British and the massive manpower contributed from the often reluctant colonies. Whether intentional or not Fred Anderson puts the colonialist's support for Britain in a bad light. The colonial assemblies' willingness or lack of, to either provide provincial troops or support British troops in the first half of the war, a war that was being fought on their behalf against a confident and bellicose enemy puts the war effort into a hew that never really changes into a favourable one, despite the best efforts of the author to beef up their importance. Indeed, that their contributions had to be financially guaranteed by William Pitt before they would cough up any sort of significant contribution to their own defence staggers belief and casts a long shadow upon the story of Britain and her American colonies fighting a war against the French enemy- together. The often cited intransigence of the "Americans" or British colonials, depending on the author's retelling of failings or successes tells us that a revolution of sorts had already occurred between the mother country and its American children, years before that schism was forcefully brought into view in the American War of Independence. So, there's lots to ponder over then, especially for us Brits! Anderson rifles through every conceivable detail of the story and rarely leaves a stone unturned in the examination of the war's cause, length, and reasons for victory and defeat on both sides, thorough evaluations from colonial taxation to the enthralling fall of Quebec. For British readers it is worth mentioning that in all areas Anderson tries to give an American side to the war, which can seem strange to those brought up on General Wolfe and the Thin Red Line, not the seemingly unheroic and ill-disciplined colonial militias. The sheer intensity of the war and its importance to the development of a global empire for Britain are slightly overshadowed by this American point of view. It can also be slightly irritating to find traditional British titles of rank such as Duke and Earl spelt in the lower case together with Britain's empire. I wonder if historians of Rome commit to the same protocol? Mute points perhaps for a book that paints the fullest picture possible of the French and Indian War, portraying all aspects of the British, French, American and Indian point of view, and thus does exactly what it says on the tin. A triumph of engaging history and a triumph for a history that needed to be told in its fullest light.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: I have to say that, while I am addicted to reading history, I've rarely found military history very interesting. Although it is dramatic in its tales of horror, brilliant gambles, cold calculation, inhuman cruelty, and heartbreaking self-sacrifice, military events nonetheless seem to me to be more often a symptom, rather than a cause, of human history. I feel the explanatory potential of military history is limited, sort of like the "sports pages" of history: wars usually confirm and rarely obstruct (and then only briefly) deeper demographic, economic, technological, social, political, cultural and even epidemiological processes. I have recently been prompted to reassess this bias of mine--Gabriel Kolko's eloquent description of modern war as history's fast-forward button, "telescoping" several decades' worth of social change into a few dozen months, first got me thinking that war might have a life of its own, especially when it unleashes events that neither side contemplated let alone predicted. Similarly, Niall Ferguson's location of the origins of modern public finance in the need for governments to quickly and massively finance wars is most intriguing. And then this massive tome comes along and storms another rampart of my prejudice against the relevance of war to the broad course of history. To be sure, despite what some have expected, this book is not a military history--even though much of its superbly frictionless writing is invested in detailed accounts of logistics, maneuvers, strategies, battles and generals. It is instead an examination of a war's effects on an imperial system, and Professor Anderson argues compellingly that this particular war (the Seven Years' War) was the decisive factor in the collapse of the British empire in North America. Thus, the French side of the war is virtually unexamined: while whole chapters are devoted to the intricacies and dynamics of Whitehall decision-making factions, there is not a single paragraph on French aims, the structure of the French political elite, or even Louis XV. But these would be distractions from the point of the book: that one must view Britain's loss of thirteen of its American colonies (what Americans call "the Revolution") from the vantage of an empire bloated, exhausted and strained by an unexpectedly long and expensive global war. Yes, the Stamp Act is given a great deal of attention compared to items of purely military interest. But that is precisely where Anderson wants us to focus, to see how the war's aftermath (economic depression, imperial financial crisis, conflicting expectations of the rewards and duties of 'empire', the sudden shriveling of Indian power west of the Appalachians) fostered irreconciliable trans-Atlantic differences culminating in rebellion.
I have a lot of books I'd like to read. Normally, when I acquire a new book, I read the introduction to get a good idea what the book is like, and then put it on my list of books to get around to (its position on the list determined by how intrigued I am by the introduction). This one, however, refused to be relegated to the list, and I read its entire 850 or so pages (including the fascinating notes on, for example, the barbarity of British military discipline, or Boston's traditional Pope Day gangster brawls) in one long go. It never once even came close to bogging down.
Rating:
Summary: Great one volume history of the 7 yrs war
Review: I'm not a colonial historian by any means but by my reading I thought this was a well put together, comprehensive, and clarifying history of the Seven Years War. I think its most important component is the degree to which it goes to explain the importance of inter-tribe relations as well as Euro-Indian relations as factors in the war's development and outcome. The quick snippets about Frederick's campaigns throughout Prussia were very well written and terrific to read. One criticism is that it that there is not as much contextual information about the pre-war French empire in North America and the Caribbean, as well as background on the war policy deliberations of the French court, as I would have liked.
Rating:
Summary: a long book, detailed honorable
Review: Interested in the birth of the American psyche? Before the revolution the American colonies were driven into a viscous war with their northern and western neighboors, the french and indians. Forced to learn the art of colonianal combat and deep forest fighting in a hostile climate the colonies earned a sense of independence. This war was also dotted with the interested personalities of General Pitt and Montcalm. THis book fills an essential gap in American history. A great read for the military scholar and the political historian.
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