A masterly narrative history of the Seven Years War, by which the British eliminated French power north of the Caribbean, at the same time igniting the slow-burning fuse of the American revolution. Fred Anderson observes how the war gave American colonists their first conflicts with real Englishmen; and how Americans were consequently emboldened to rally against the men who were once their masters. He offers a wholly engrossing account of the conflict, interweaving the stories of kings and officers with those of traders, Native Americans, and colonial peoples.