The French & Indian War, or the Seven Years' War
I have always been drawn to the first world war, the one that began in a remote glen in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1754 and by its end changed the look of the world in 1763. It sets up the American War of Independence, the decades of war between Britain and France -- in many ways, the modern age itself. For twenty years I attended as a vendor the annual seminar of the Braddock Road Preservation Association, and it educated and entertained me with some of the best scholars in the field. On this page I will offer new books and classics, dvds and audiobooks, and any other worthy items of the 18th century that relate to the "wilderness war."
The Pioneers ( Penguin Classics )
The Pioneers ( Penguin Classics )
Originally published in 1823, the novel is the first of Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales and the one that incorporates most fully his own experience of growing up in a town on the American frontier. He provides brilliant pictures of village life, from Christmas dinner and a turkey shoot, to church and tavern, deer hunt and forest fire, and village courtship and courtroom drama. The heart of the novel is a conflict over who owns America, and by what concept of right.