Introduction, Book Structure and the Context of Historiography

Abstract

Francis Parkman, one of nineteenth-century America’s most recognized early scholars of the French and Indian War, once commented that “great events obscure the great events that came before them,” as he reflected on the Seven Years War and its declining relevance in the eyes of his contemporaries.¹ In this statement of undoubted lamentation, Parkman was alluding to the unfortunate reality that the Seven Years War was increasingly slipping into the haze of historical obscurity as subsequent events, such as the American War of Independence and Napoleonic conflicts, overshadowed what had been one of the world’s major conflagrations. Even to this day, Parkman’s reflection carries some weight and, as a consequence, legendary names such as James Wolfe, Edward Braddock, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm and Tanaghrisson (the “Half King”) do not have the same iconic impact they once possessed in the eighteenth and even nineteenth centuries. Perhaps, however, it always was inevitable that the passage of time and the influence of subsequent history would push these fundamental characters and events to the back of national consciousness.² Certainly, unless one were to place the chronology of the French and Indian War in the context of fiction, such as James Fennimore Cooper’s iconic Last of the Mohicans and subsequent associated twentieth-century films, then widespread familiarity with this most pivotal of conflicts is very unlikely indeed. Alas, as time progresses and as new historic epochs are written, it is probable that this great war for imperial preeminence will fade yet further into the distance of national memory.