Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. . - book review

Parameters, Winter, 2001 by Robert Major Bateman

Crucible of war: The seven years war and the fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. By Fred Anderson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. 862 pages. $40.00. Reviewed by Major Robert Bateman, Department of History, US Military Academy, West Point, New York.

If the true benefit that we gain from the reading of history is not the "lessons learned" but rather the wisdom of age, then Fred Anderson has handed us a windfall. Crucible of War is all about wisdom, and contains the echoes of empire on nearly every page. Hubris, arrogance, cultural disdain, and pseudo-professionalism were the hallmarks of the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian War to the English colonists in North America, and Anderson brings all of this forward with wonderful clarity. This is a great work of synthetic history, bringing together a variety of mainly secondary sources, and weaving them into what should now be considered the basic work on the Seven Years War in the Americas. I recommend it strongly to all professionals with an interest in the strategic ebb and flow of war.

In 1984 Anderson published a small work, A People's Army, in which he described the nature of some of the conflicts between the British army, in particular its officer corps, and the colonial soldiers who volunteered for service in the Seven Years War in Massachusetts. The book was limited in scope but demonstrated both Anderson's command of the relevant primary sources and his ability to convey complex ideas simply. In Crucible of War he takes on a project entirely too large to use primary sources exclusively, but he has retained his skill in communicating convoluted concepts simply and with style.

Before Anderson's work, the literature on the Seven Years War focused either on the behavior of individuals (most commonly on Generals Montcalm and Wolfe) or on the military events of the war. Anderson moves beyond that, and at the same time places the American Revolution in a new context. Anderson accomplishes his first goal by taking in all the multifaceted social and cultural factors underlying the colonial prosecution of the war. He meets the second aim through the sheer weight of evidence he presents. In Crucible of War Anderson convincingly demonstrates that the period 1764-1775 should not be examined as the "Pre-Revolutionary Era" as is common today, but should be looked at as the contemporaries saw it, a postwar period of unsettled contention and continental upheaval.

Three recurring themes appear in Crucible of War: the arrogance of the regular officers of both the British and the French professional armies; the critical role of logistics and infrastructure; and the importance of culture. In his presentation of all three Anderson hits his mark, and at the same time manages to tell a compelling tale. This is not a dry work of analysis that one feels duty-bound to plow through, but a riveting series of intertwined stories that lead the reader from scene to scene. Some of these scenes depict events at the tactical level of war, some at the operational, and several at that poorly defined boundary between the strategic and the political levels. In all of them, however, Anderson manages to bring life to the historical actors, large and small.

If there is a weakness at all in this work it is in Anderson's almost exclusive Anglo-American focus and use of sources. Although the book is about events in North America, not in Europe, and the title relates to the weakening of the foundations of the British empire, many of the events resulted from decisions made in Paris as well as in London. Although Anderson provides insights into the machinations of the inner circles of Parliament and the King's Privy Council, the reader does not get a correspondingly detailed look into the strategic and political decision process in Paris. This neglect reaches into his sources as well, where almost no French accounts or secondary sources appear. Although this would normally be a heavy indictment of a work intended to be comprehensive, Anderson generally manages to overcome this limitation by the sheer weight of his bibliography.

Hubris and cultural incomprehension were the hallmarks of the "professional" soldiers sent from Europe by both sides in this war. Although the French generally deserve higher marks in this respect, especially in their relationships with native Americans, this relationship may have also proven to be the proximate cause of their eventual downfall. The interactions of military leaders from both sides with their respective colonists and the native American cultures demonstrate these flaws again and again. If wisdom is to be gleaned from this work, then Americans of the 21st century might look in a mirror and determine if the image reflected resembles that of a Lord Loudoun or the Marquis de Montcalm.