Crucible of War

This is a masterly narrative history of the Seven Years War, in which the British decisively eliminated French power north of the Caribbean, and yet also managed to ignite the slow-burning fuse of the American Revolution.

Fred Anderson observes how the war displaced native peoples from their previously central role in an American diplomatic system; how it gave American colonists their first encounters with real live Englishmen; and how Americans were consequently emboldened to rally against the men who were once their masters. Anderson offers a wholly engrossing account of the conflict, interweaving the stories of kings and officers with those of traders, Native Americans, and colonial peoples.