War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire - Brossura

Dowd, Gregory Evans

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0801878926 ISBN 13: 9780801878923

Casa editrice: JHUP, 2004

Riassunto

Dowd boldly reinterprets the causes and consequences of Pontiac's War. Where previous Anglocentric histories have ascribed this dramatic uprising to disputes over trade and land, this groundbreaking work traces the conflict back to status: both the low regard in which the British held the Indians and the concern among Native American leaders about their people's standing--and their sovereignty--in the eyes of the British. Pontiac's War also embodied a clash of world views, and Dowd examines the central role that Indian cultural practices and beliefs played in the conflict, explores the political and military culture of the British Empire which informed the attitudes its servants had toward Indians, provides insightful portraits of Pontiac and his Britishadversaries, and offers a detailed analysis of the military and diplomatic strategies of both sides.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"Shifting from councils at frontier outposts to deliberations at Whitehall, Dowd elucidates the contradictions in British policy toward Indian sovereignty that helped ignite the conflict... His explication of both sides' strategies and tactics in the ferocious struggle is both sober and gripping. And, in perhaps his most original contribution, he skillfully uses the perforce meager evidence to analyze the religious dimensions of the Indians' resistance. A stylish writer with a talent for compression, Dowd engages and advances while making the lines of those debates clear to the general reader. His book is the best account of its subject."

(Benjamin Schwarz Atlantic Monthly)

"Masterful and nuanced... Dowd is especially original in his analysis of the war's legacy. Its prime lesson, its ambiguity, was part of a larger crisis of empire... [Pontiac's War] rippled far into the American future. This tightly written and engaging history brings it alive and lifts it convincingly to its proper place as a turning point in the continental story."

(Elliott West Washington Times)

"Dowd draws on his considerable expertise of eighteenth-century Native American resistance movements to construct a detailed retelling of the rebellion... Dowd gives us a fine history."

(Michael McDonnell Times Literary Supplement)

"Provocatively written and masterfully researched, Dowd's important new monograph... challenges much of the recent scholarship on the conflict, offering a bold new interpretation that links this Indian war with broader themes in Atlantic and Native American History... Merits the attention of all students of early American history."

(Jon Parmenter Journal of American History)

"Among historians of early America, the consensus in recent years has been to underplay Pontiac's role as a visionary patriot chief but at the same time to elevate the conflict that bears his name from a 'rebellion' to an all-out war that stopped British imperial expansion in its tracks, at least temporarily. Gregory Evans Dowd provides a thoughtful, expertly researched articulation of that consensus in his new book, which is certain to supplant Howard Peckham's Pontiac and the Indian Uprising as the definitive scholarly account of the conflict... This fine book raises important questions about how we should situate Pontiac's War (or Rebellion, if you like) in the larger story of Britain's eighteenth-century imperial expansion and U.S. empire building to this day."

(Timothy J. Shannon Common-Place)

"Dowd strips away the mythology that has long clouded the reputation of this accomplished Ottawa leader. At the same time, Dowd brilliantly demonstrates that the conflict between the British and the various unified Indian nations was not over land or trade but rather British respect of Indian sovereignty... An elegantly written ethnohistorical study."

(Library Journal)

"Dowd's arguments are convincing, his prose is accessible and vibrant, the research is prodigious, and War under Heaven will occupy an important place in the historiography of the pays d'en haut... An important and gripping work of history."

(James Taylor Carson Journal of Military History)

"Dowd does an excellent job of placing the war in the context of Indians' spirituality... a beautifully written and well-researched book."

(Robert M. Owens Michigan Historical Review)

"The story Dowd tells is a complicated one, and that he is able to present it in only 275 pages of text is an amazing feat. He not only presents sophisticated analyses of the Indian cultures of the Great Lakes region, of British Imperial culture as manifested on the North American frontier, and provides several succinct biographies and background information about leaders on both sides,―not to mention the best hisoriography of Pontiac's life to date―he does so in away that is useful and accessible to both a scholarly and a general readership."

(Michael Sherfy Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History)

"An insightful account of military operations in what would later be termed 'the Old Northwest territories'... The author provides an analytic treatment, discussing the implications, consequences, and problems created by the Anglo-American victory, and is not afraid to point out and wrestle with difficult problems in historiography and interpretation."

(New York Military Affairs Symposium Newsletter)

L'autore:

Gregory Evans Dowd is a professor of history and American Culture and the director of Native American Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author of A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815, also available from Johns Hopkins.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: JHUP
• Data di pubblicazione: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0801878926
• ISBN 13: 9780801878923
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 378