Review Article: Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766

Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2000). xxiii, 862, illustrated, maps, index. Hardcover $40.00 (ISBN 0-375-40642- 5); Paperback (New York: Vintage Books, 2001) $20.00 (ISBN 0-375- 70636-4)

The paradox of writing history is that while researching one must stick to original sources and not rely upon other historians, yet one writes to be read. Thus, it is foolish to criticize Edward Gibbon for not citing in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire any secondary sources ¹; Gibbon will be read even if his every sentence were to be disproven by archaeological or literary discoveries. It is equally foolish, though, to say that since one has Gibbon, one does not need to bother with other modern histories of the ancient Roman world.

Likewise, although no one interested in the French and Indian War can ignore the works of Francis Parkman, there will continue to be new accounts to consider. Following now in the trail of Parkman is Fred Anderson, with Crucible of War. Anderson is a professor of history at the University of Colorado and made his mark with A People's Army (1984), about soldiers and civilians in Massachusetts during the French and Indian War. In Crucible of War, Anderson provides the panoramic view for the details so close to the local historian. He does so in one vast but readable volume, in the narrative tradition of Parkman and without the rancor of Francis Jennings, who in his three volumes on the War seems to take the injustices of the past as personal affronts.²

The French and Indian War, also called pompously by some The Great War for Empire and blandly by others The Seven Years' War, was the only global conflict to touch the Cumberland Valley. All other world wars have seen the valley send citizens off to fight; that war saw the fight come into the valley. This region, a sparse and vulnerable wilderness, was one of the frontiers of the then emerging British Empire. When so much attention during the War for Independence seems to center on Boston or Philadelphia, local students of history point with pride to the importance of western Pennsylvania (as even Carlisle was then) in the earlier, more obscure, conflict.

To Carlisle came British troops and Pennsylvania diplomats loyal to the Crown. General John Forbes marched from Carlisle to Fort Duquesne; Benjamin Franklin and Conrad Weiser met in Carlisle with Indian leaders to woo them away from the French. After war broke out, local citizens such as John Armstrong took up arms alongside British regulars.³ There was in Carlisle a British fort, discussed authoritatively by William A Hunter, and there has been on that site a military presence ever since.

In academic circles it is fashionable to dismiss popular history, perhaps because it draws attention from esoteric analyses of socio-economic trends amongst the members of a community least likely to leave behind literary remains. Anderson declares from the outset his desire to write "a book accessible to general readers that will also satisfy [my] fellow historians' scholarly expectations.”⁴ He offers "a narrative intended to synthesize a sizable range of scholarship," and he has done so with the sort of sweeping and riveting story-telling as old-fashioned as a movie without foul language.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, another historian in the old style, has observed that "Anderson's research was confined to printed sources," that "he has spent most of his space and time on his narrative," and that "the amount of evidence he cites for his arguments is slight, though suggestive. "⁵ The reader becomes aware, however, that even when "confined to printed sources," Anderson has a large field to cover. He has mastered the literature, primary and secondary, from the diaries of George Washington to the seemingly encyclopedic tomes of Lawrence Henry Gipson. Of note also is his use of the work on the Iroquois by Daniel K. Richter, formerly professor of history at Dickinson College and now at the University of Pennsylvania.

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