Louisbourg, France's impressive fortress on Cape Breton Island's foggy Atlantic coast, dominated access to the St. Lawrence and colonial New France for forty years in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1755, Great Britain and France stumbled into the French and Indian War, part of what (to Europe) became the Seven Years' War—only for British forces to suffer successive defeats. In 1758, Britain and France, as well as Indian nations caught in the rivalry, fought for high stakes: the future of colonial America. Hugh Boscawen describes how Britain's war minister William Pitt launched four fleets in a coordinated campaign to prevent France from reinforcing Louisbourg. As the author shows, the Royal Navy outfought its opponents before General Jeffery Amherst and Brigadier James Wolfe successfully led 14,000 British regulars, including American-born redcoats, rangers, and carpenters, in a hard-fought assault landing. Together they besieged the fortress, which surrendered after forty-nine days. The victory marked a turning point in British fortunes and precipitated the end of French rule in North America. Boscawen, an experienced soldier and sailor, and a direct descendant of Admiral the Hon. Edward Boscawen, who commanded the Royal Navy fleet at Louisbourg, examines the pivotal 1758 Louisbourg campaign from both the British and French perspectives. Drawing on myriad primary sources, including previously unpublished correspondence, Boscawen also answers the question "What did the soldiers and sailors who fought there do all day?" The result is the most comprehensive history of this strategically important campaign ever written.

Featuring information from a previously unpublished journal, an illustrated account of this strategically important battle in Canada. Louisbourg represented a major threat to Anglo-American plans to invade Canada. Bypassing it would leave an immensely powerful enemy base astride the Anglo-American lines of communication – Louisbourg had to be taken. Faced with strong beach defences and rough weather, it took six days to land the troops, and it was only due to a stroke of daring on the part of a young brigadier named James Wolfe, who managed to turn the French beach position, that this was achieved. The story is largely based on firsthand accounts from the journals of several participants, including French Governor Drucour's, whose excellent account has never been published.

The first comprehensive study of naval operations involving North American squadrons in Nova Scotia waters, Frigates and Foremasts offers a masterful analysis of the motives behind the deployment of Royal Navy vessels between 1745 and 1815, and the navy’s role on the Western Atlantic. Interweaving historical analysis with vivid descriptions of pivotal events from the first siege of Louisbourg in 1745 to the end of the wars with the United States and France in 1815, Julian Gwyn illuminates the complex story of competing interests among the Admiralty, Navy Board, sea officers, and government officials on both sides of the Atlantic. In a gripping narrative encompassing sea battles, impressments, and privateering, Gwyn brings to life key events and central figures. He examines the role of leadership and the lack of it, not only of seagoing heroes from Peter Warren to Philip Broke, but also of land-based officials, such as the various Halifax naval yard commissioners, whose important contributions are brought to light. Gwyn’s brilliant evocation of people and events, and the scholarship he brings to bear on the subject makes Frigates and Foremasts a uniquely authoritative history. Wonderfully readable, it will attract both the serious naval historian and the general reader interested in the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of naval history on North America's eastern seaboard.

This is the first complete military study of the campaign directed by Brigadier General John Forbes in 1758 to drive the French out of the forks of the Ohio River. The author details the leadership, logistics, artillery, training and discipline that led to the campaign's success and discusses its role in American Colonial history.

The British victory on the Plains of Abraham in September 1759 and the subsequent Conquest of Canada were undoubtedly significant geopolitical events, but their nature and implications continue to be debated. Revisiting 1759 provides a fresh historical reappraisal of the Conquest and its aftermath using new approaches drawn from military, imperial, social, and Aboriginal history. This cohesive collection investigates many of the most hotly contested questions surrounding the Conquest: Was the battle itself a crucial turning point, or just one element in the global struggle between France and Great Britain? Did the battle's outcome reflect the superior strategy of General James Wolfe or rather errors on both sides? Did the Conquest alter the long-term trajectories of the French and British empires or simply confirm patterns well underway? How formative was the Conquest in defining the new British America and those now living under its rule? As this collection makes vividly clear, the Conquest's most profound consequences may in fact be quite different from those that have traditionally been emphasized.

In 1760, General Jeffery Amherst led the British campaign that captured Montreal and began the end of French colonial rule in North America. All Canada in the Hands of the British is a detailed account of Amherst’s successful military strategy and soldiers’ experiences on both sides. Newly promoted general Jeffery Amherst took command of British forces in North America in 1759 and soon secured victories at Fort Duquesne, Louisbourg, Quebec, Fort Ticonderoga, and Niagara. In 1760 William Pitt, head of the British government, commanded Amherst to eliminate French rule in Canada. During the ensuing campaign, Amherst confronted French resurgence at Quebec and mounted sieges at Isle aux Noix and Fort Lévis, both of which were made difficult by French strategic placements on nearby islands. As historian Douglas R. Cubbison demonstrates, however, Amherst was well before his time in strategy and tactics, and his forces crushed French resistance. In this first book-length study of Amherst’s campaign, Cubbison examines the three principal columns that Amherst’s army comprised, only one of which was under his direct command. Cubbison argues that Amherst’s success against the French relied on his employment of command, control, communications, and intelligence. Cubbison also shows how well Brigadier General James Murray’s use of what is today called population-centric counterinsurgency corresponded with Amherst’s strategic oversight and victory. Using archival materials, archaeological evidence, and the firsthand accounts of junior provincial soldiers, Cubbison takes us from the eighteenth-century antagonisms between the British and French in the New World through the Seven Years’ War, to the final siege and its historic significance for colonial Canada. In one of the most decisive victories of the Seven Years’ War, Amherst was able, after a mere four weeks, to claim all of Canada. All Canada in the Hands of the British will change how military historians and enthusiasts understand the nature of British colonial battle strategy.

The accepted narrative of the interwar U.S. Navy is one of transformation from a battle-centric force into a force that could fight on the “three planes” of war: in the skies, on the water, and under the waves. The political and cultural tumult that accompanied this transformation is another story. Ryan D. Wadle’s Selling Sea Power explores this little-known but critically important aspect of naval history. After World War I, the U.S. Navy faced numerous challenges: a call for naval arms limitation, the ascendancy of air power, and budgetary constraints exacerbated by the Great Depression. Selling Sea Power tells the story of how the navy met these challenges by engaging in protracted public relations campaigns at a time when the means and methods of reaching the American public were undergoing dramatic shifts. While printed media continued to thrive, the rapidly growing film and radio industries presented new means by which the navy could connect with politicians and the public. Deftly capturing the institutional nuances and the personalities in play, Wadle tracks the U.S. Navy’s at first awkward but ultimately successful manipulation of mass media. At the same time, he analyzes what the public could actually see of the service in the variety of media available to them, including visual examples from progressively more sophisticated—and effective—public relations campaigns. Integrating military policy and strategy with the history of American culture and politics, Selling Sea Power offers a unique look at the complex links between the evolution of the art and industry of persuasion and the growth of the modern U.S. Navy, as well as the connections between the workings of communications and public relations and the command of military and political power.

In Inventing America, José Rabasa presents the view that Columbus's historic act was not a discovery, and still less an encounter. Rather, he considers it the beginning of a process of inventing a New World in the sixteenth century European consciousness. The notion of America as a European invention challenges the popular conception of the New World as a natural entity to be discovered or understood, however imperfectly. This book aims to debunk complacency with the historic, geographic, and cartographic rudiments underlying our present picture of the world.