Empires at War: The Seven Years' War and the Struggle for North America, 1754–1763

Martin F. Auger is a historian at the Canadian War Museum and the author
of Prisoners of the Home Front: German POWs and “Enemy Aliens” in
Southern Quebec, 1940–46.

Empires at War is a solid study of the Seven Years’ War in North
America. William Fowler Jr. argues that this struggle, which began on
this continent and spread around the world, was really history’s first
world war. Between 1754 and 1763, the armies and navies of France, Great
Britain, and other world powers fought each other at sea and on
battlefields in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa
in a titanic struggle for imperial dominance. Hundreds of thousands of
civilians and combatants died worldwide. And when peace came, the weary
belligerents traded territories vaster than all of Europe. Never before
had nations warred on such a vast scale.

Empires at War sets the French–British struggle for North America in
a global military and political context. Fowler explores in detail how
events taking place on this continent were connected to the progression
of the war in other parts of the world. In 13 well-researched chapters,
he analyses specific aspects of the war in North America, such as the
series of French victories in the early years of the conflict and how
the situation gradually changed as the British devoted increased human
and material resources to the North American theatre. He describes in
great detail the decisions of politicians and top-ranking officers, the
buildup of European armies and naval forces in North America, and the
series of brutal campaigns conducted by each belligerent on this
continent. He concludes that the war’s most decisive battles were
fought in North America; the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham, for
example, not only resulted in the British capture of Quebec but also set
the stage for the British conquest of New France and the end of 150
years of French–British rivalry in North America. Fowler should be
particularly praised for shedding light on the prominent role played by
the First Nations, who fought according to their own agendas and not
merely as French and British auxiliaries.

Empires at War makes a significant contribution to the existing
literature on the Seven Years’ War and deepens our understanding of
how this important struggle changed the destiny of North America and the
world.