Conquered into Liberty.

AuthorJones, David T.
PositionBook review

Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Great Warpath That Made the American Way of War, by Eliot A. Cohen, Free Press, New York, NY, 2011, ISBN: 978-0-7432-4990-4.pp. 405, $30.00.

Dr. Eliot Cohen is well credentialed to write military history. Currently, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins's Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, he earlier taught at Harvard and the Naval War College. He served on the policy planning staff of OSD in the 1980s and was Counselor for Secretary of State Rice from 2007-09.

Conquered into Liberty starts with a provocative title and embraces two argumentative thematic conclusions: (a) the United States lost the War of 1812; and (b) we learned all we needed to know about military strategy/tactics during the two centuries of fighting Indians, French, and British along the "Great Warpath" lands stretching from Albany, NY into Montreal, Canada.

The sobriquet "conquered into liberty" refers to a (previously) totally forgotten 1774 proclamation pamphlet issued by the Continental Congress urging Canada to unite with the colonies by embracing their liberties and freedoms - or suffer the consequences. There is no real indication that our northern neighbors paid attention to the propaganda piece.

As Canada is about to enter into a two-year commemoration of the War of 1812, Cohen's first conclusion, Conquered's bow to Canadian triumphalism should increase sales in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. But, as examined below, the judgment is questionable.

At its best Conquered, provides interesting accounts, from strategic background to tactical on-the-ground reviews of long obscure fighting along the Great Warpath for almost two centuries between 1690 and 1871. Thereby, Cohen brings alive a series of often bloody episodes that examine the problems of combat in this wild and very lightly populated area in which command of the waters, particularly Lake Champlain and Lake George, was pivotal for success.

Initially the fighting was between French and British, a North American sidebar for their global wars primarily focused in Europe. Combat increasingly also engaged the Europeans living in the region and Indian tribes as well as British and French regular forces. It is noteworthy that while the Indians ultimately were ground up in the process, depopulated by disease as well as military losses and the era's equivalent of ethnic cleansing, they were hardly peaceful innocent victims. Indeed...

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