Raiders from New France


Book Description

Though the French and British colonies in North America began on a 'level playing field', French political conservatism and limited investment allowed the British colonies to forge ahead, pushing into territories that the French had explored deeply but failed to exploit. The subsequent survival of 'New France' can largely be attributed to an intelligent doctrine of raiding warfare developed by imaginative French officers through close contact with Indian tribes and Canadian settlers. The ground-breaking new research explored in this study indicates that, far from the ad hoc opportunism these raids seemed to represent, they were in fact the result of a deliberate plan to overcome numerical weakness by exploiting the potential of mixed parties of French soldiers, Canadian backwoodsmen and allied Indian warriors. Supported by contemporary accounts from period documents and newly explored historical records, this study explores the 'hit-and-run' raids which kept New Englanders tied to a defensive position and ensured the continued existence of the French colonies until their eventual cession in 1763.







The French and Indian War


Book Description

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.







Ranger Raid


Book Description

A figure of legendary, almost mythic proportions, Robert Rogers is widely considered the father of U.S. Army Rangers. He gained his fame during the French and Indian War, fighting in the American and Canadian wilderness for the British colonies and the English Empire against the French and Indians, but a decade later, during the Revolution, he was almost a man without a country. During the American Revolution, George Washington didn’t trust him—indeed, he had Rogers arrested in 1776—nor did the British, who, desperate, gave him a command anyway, and Rogers was pivotal in arresting and executing American spy Nathan Hale. However, Rogers' saga begins in the French and Indian War in what was a true American Odyssey. Ranger Raid digs deep into Rogers’ most controversial battle: the raid on St. Francis in Canada during the French and Indian War. On October 4, 1759, Rogers and 140 Rangers raided the Native American town of St. Francis, Canada, as part of British general Jeffery Amherst’s plan to gain intelligence in the St. Lawrence region. At the time, and for many decades thereafter, this was seen as a great victory—but now it seems like more of a massacre. Phillip Thomas Tucker refreshes this story, combining the biography of Robert Rogers, the history of his Rangers, and the history of the native peoples in this region, to tell a new story of the St. Francis raid and its influence in the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and ever after.




The Passing of New France


Book Description




Scorched Earth


Book Description

A global history of environmental warfare and the case for why it should be a crime The environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies has been a target and instrument of war for centuries, resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people’s livelihoods and ways of life. Scorched Earth traces the history of scorched earth, military inundations, and armies living off the land from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, arguing that the resulting deliberate destruction of the environment—"environcide"—constitutes total war and is a crime against humanity and nature. In this sweeping global history, Emmanuel Kreike shows how religious war in Europe transformed Holland into a desolate swamp where hunger and the black death ruled. He describes how Spanish conquistadores exploited the irrigation works and expansive agricultural terraces of the Aztecs and Incas, triggering a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Kreike demonstrates how environmental warfare has continued unabated into the modern era. His panoramic narrative takes readers from the Thirty Years' War to the wars of France's Sun King, and from the Dutch colonial wars in North America and Indonesia to the early twentieth century colonial conquest of southwestern Africa. Shedding light on the premodern origins and the lasting consequences of total war, Scorched Earth explains why ecocide and genocide are not separate phenomena, and why international law must recognize environmental warfare as a violation of human rights.




The Fall of New France


Book Description

Grade level: 9, 10, 11, 12, i, s.