Conquered Into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War

“Conquered into Liberty has a valued place in the library of anyone who wishes to understand the development of the United States and its approach to war.”

Eliot Cohen calls our attention to the corridor between Albany and Montreal and the Lake Champlain Valley. His study identifies it as an area crucial to the shaping of the geopolitics and military culture of the United States.

The Great Warpath, as Native Americans called it, was an area contested for almost two centuries by Europeans, Americans, and Canadians. It appeared to all as the key to control of the North American continent.

Dr. Cohen reviews battles and “phantom campaigns” among the French, Americans, British, and Canadians. The conflict took on a savagery and scope unknown to Europeans. In so doing, the author contends that the struggles took on “a raw energy and unwillingness to accept limits.”

He insists that the conflicts along the Great Warpath resulted in the emergence of the “citizen-soldier” and the concept of “conquering into liberty” a native population.

The Great Warpath saw six global wars play out along its path from the end of the 17th century to the demise of the French Empire in the 19th century. The reader might well have an atlas handy, for the maps provided by Dr. Cohen, while colorful, are not very useful.

Conquered Into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War provides an innovative approach to the telling of military history that helps the reader better understand the present.

Conquered into Liberty has a valued place in the library of anyone who wishes to understand the development of the United States and its approach to war.