French and Indian War

The French and Indian War was but the American front of a much larger war taking place in Europe, the outcome of which had significant consequences for both North America and the world. As the frontier sideshow of the Seven Years' War, being fought between the powerful English and French empires in the 1760s, the French and Indian War brought northern America firmly under the control of Great Britain, and removed the vital French counter-weight used by native American Indian tribes to block the westward encroachment of land-hungry English settlers.

An excellent introduction to the study of this pivotal war, The French and Indian War begins with a detailed timeline that provides both local and global contexts and a narrative chapter providing a bird's-eye view of the war's unfolding. Also included are chapters detailing the complex and fascinating interactions of Native Americans, French settlers, British colonials, and imperial officials. The work concludes with a chapter delving into the long-term local and global consequences of the war. Primary documents, biographical sketches of major figures, an annotated bibliography, and a thorough index round out this user-friendly, to-the-point reference guide to one of the least understood conflicts in American history.

ALFRED A. CAVE is Professor of History at the University of Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of Jacksonian Democracy and the Historians (1964) and The Pequot War (1996), and numerous articles on early American ethnohistory.