The War That Made America

A Short History of the French and Indian War

By: Fred Anderson

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War, and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history. In January 2006, PBS will air The War That Made America, a four-part documentary about this epic conflict. Fred Anderson, the award-winning and critically acclaimed historian, has written the official tie-in to this exciting television event.

In The War That Made America, Anderson deftly shows how the expansion of the British colonies into French territory in the 1750s and the ongoing Native American struggle for survival would erupt into seven years of bloodshed and unrest spreading from the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the high courts of Europe, eventually overturning the balance of power on two continents and laying the groundwork for the American Revolution. Beautifully illustrated, richly detailed, and utterly compelling, this is the story of how America as we know it today emerged from a series of fractured colonies and warring tribes into a nation ripe for independence, and nobody tells this story better than Fred Anderson.

Listen to more Books That Changed the World.©2005 The War That Made America, LLC (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Like the best popular historians, Anderson combines exhaustive research and an accessible prose style in a volume that should help rescue the French and Indian War from historical obscurity." (Publishers Weekly)

It is all coming together!!!

What an amazing book! I learned so much not just about the war itself, but they did a remarkable job of really making sense of how this conflict set in motion the conditions that led to the revolutionary war and the ‘manifest destiny.’

An interesting history lesson

A quick moving telling and detailed account of a war that was very important, but overshadowed in our history classes by the revolutionary war. The author presents the many aspects and players of this conflict interesting details including the personalities and battle details that it held my attention well. The author to me seemed an amazing master of the subject!

History Trumps Fiction

If you could sum up The War That Made America in three words, what would they be?

This book masterfully tied up some loose ends in my knowledge of pre-revolutionary North American History

What other book might you compare The War That Made America to and why?

It was written in the woven style of Chernow in Washington: A Life. George was a key figure in the French and Indian war,also.

Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Simon Vance should be cloned. He is an excellent narrator who moves to French with ease and whose cadence is perfect.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Blood and Gore for a Winning Score

Any additional comments?

I appreciate the intrigues of the Iroquois League much better. What better way for Quakers to fight than to have Indians do it for them!!

Gives so much depth and context to a war usually treated in a paragraph

Unless you are quite the history buff, you probably have a vague recollection that the French and Indian war had something to do with the US war for independence, and that it wasn’t actually fought between the French and the Indians. The War that Made America fills out the conflict with all the details we never learned in school—like that there were multiple tribes involved in the conflict, some pro-English, some pro-French, and all sophisticated, powerful strategic actors in their own right. Frankly, just hearing the names of different tribes rather than just “the Indians” was worth the price of admission, if you ask me. Anderson also weaves in the geopolitics of the Seven Years war in Europe and beyond to give context and depth to what can seem to be a fairly simple, straightforward event. He takes it even further with a really insightful and compelling analysis of how the war shaped the future—of George Washington, the American conflict with the British, the American relationship with native tribes, and the whole British Empire. Despite the scope and breadth of his analysis, he has written an accessible and fascinating account that fills in the gaps usually missing in the history of colonial America.

Presents a much more complex picture than I understood before hearing this book.

Well read
Well written. Made the history accessible on a probably the deep truth behind the American Revolution