cover image Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies and Tribes in the Seven Years War in America

Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies and Tribes in the Seven Years War in America

Francis Jennings. W. W. Norton & Company, $55 (548pp) ISBN 978-0-393-02537-8

The Seven Years War (aka the French and Indian War) pitted the British and French empires against each other in a grab for the homeland of American Indians. This riveting, massively documented epic overturns textbook cliches concerning the struggle. Jennings argues that the Indians made every effort to avoid taking up arms; that they were forced into battle by land frauds, assaults and direct interference; that certain generals, far from being gallant heroes, used terror against their own troops and civilians. Here is Thomas Penn, renouncing his father William's Quaker faith and launching conspiracies that fueled fighting; George Washington lying to the Delawares; Ben Franklin supporting expansionism to his own political ends. Colonists' anger at war taxes and conscription sowed the seeds of the American Revolution. Completing a trilogy begun with The Invasion of America and The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, this impassioned study throws valuable light on our history. (March)