To Risk It All - (Regional) by Michael McConnell (Paperback)

About the Book

A Comprehensive History Placing Forbes and His Campaign during the Seven Years' War within the Context of the Eighteenth Century British Empire

Book Synopsis

General John Forbes's campaign against Fort Duquesne was the largest overland expedition during the Seven Years' War in America. While most histories of the period include the Forbes Campaign as an aside, McConnell documents how and why Forbes and his army succeeded, and what his success meant to the subsequent history of the mid-Atlantic colonies, native inhabitants of the Ohio Country, and the empire he represented.
A close look at the Forbes Campaign and its personnel reveals much about both British relations with native peoples and the nature of Britain's American empire during a time of stress. Unlike other campaigns, this one consisted largely of colonial--not professional British--troops. In addition, individual colonies negotiated their role in the campaign and frequently placed their own local interests ahead of those of the empire as a whole. The campaign thus suggests the limits of imperial power and how Britain's hold over its American frontiers was, at best, tenuous and helped lead to an eventual breakdown of empire in the 1760s and 1770s.

Review Quotes

In this detailed and fast-paced narrative, the Forbes campaign of 1758 finally gets the respect it deserves. By reconstructing the experiences, objectives, and discontents of British troops, provincial soldiers, Native Americans, civilians, and camp followers, Michael McConnell reveals the multi-leveled complexity involved in executing an eighteenth-century European military operation in a contested North American borderland.--Timothy Shannon, Gettysburg College

McConnell's latest is a nuanced, illuminating read for scholars of colonial American history and novices alike.-- "Pittsburgh Quarterly"

This brilliant study establishes Forbes's expedition as a decisive event of the Seven Years' War in America. Michael McConnell argues that the general's singular embrace of native diplomacy through the Quaker-brokered Treaty of Easton peaceably ended the border war while Forbes methodically marched on Fort Duquesne. With impressive scholarship and clear prose, this book is highly recommended.--Martin West, former director of Fort Ligonier and editor of Bouquet's Expedition Against the Ohio Indians in 1764

With impressive scholarship and clear prose, this book is highly recommended.--Martin West, former director of Fort Ligonier and editor of Bouquet's Expedition against the Ohio Indians in 1764

About the Author

Michael N. McConnell is associate professor emeritus of history at University of Alabama at Birmingham and the author of A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724-1774 and Army and Empire: British Soldiers on the American Frontier, 1758-1775.