Wolfe and Montcalm: Their Lives, Their Times, and the Fate of a Continent

Danial Duda is an information services librarian in the Queen Elizabeth
II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

In this book, Joy Carroll attempts to flesh out the personal side of the
lives of Wolfe and Montcalm. Unfortunately, in doing so she gives short
shrift to the historical context. There is very little discussion of how
the French and Indian War in North America—the conflict that made
Wolfe and Montcalm the historical figures they are—fit into the larger
struggle (known as the Seven Years’ War) going on in Europe and
elsewhere in the world; and there is no discussion at all of how the
French and British states planned strategy on the world stage. The
author frequently alludes to specific historical arguments or
controversies, but she declines to take a stand herself. Her anecdotal
and thinly researched book will not satisfy scholars of the two
historical lives it portrays.