Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673–1800 - Softcover

Hinderaker, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521663458 ISBN 13: 9780521663458

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Synopsis

This book examines and compares the efforts of France, Britain, and the United States to extend imperial dominion over the Ohio Valley, focusing on the relations between Europeans and Indians to tell the story. In a compelling narrative, it considers the ways in which France and Great Britain each attempted to create viable empires in the region, the conflicts that resulted, and the origins and outcome of the American Revolution in the West. The result is a fascinating story that offers a strikingly new interpretation of the origins, progress, and effects of the American Revolution.

About this title

From the Back Cover

This book examines the efforts of France, Britain, and the United States to extend imperial dominion over the Ohio Valley, focusing on relations between Europeans, Euroamericans, and Indians to tell the story. It treats empires as cross-cultural constructions whose details were negotiated by their participants and argues that three models of empire competed for acceptance in the region: empires of commerce and of land, which both the French and the British sought to build, and an empire of liberty, which grew out of the American Revolution and eventually became the basis for Euroamerican occupation of the valley. Though European trade dramatically reshaped Native American communities in the Ohio Valley, France and Britain each failed to impose territorial dominion there. The American Revolution invented a new organizing principle of empire, one that empowered middling white landowners while it decisively undermined the sovereignty and independence of Native American communities in the west.

Review

"In this day of increasingly narrow historical specialization, this book is wonderfully expansive." J. Russel Snapp, The Virginia Magazine

"Hinderaker is at his best in depicting the Ohio Valley and Mississippian Indian cultures and economies, and in contrasting the British/Colonial and French experiences in opening the Ohio Valley frontier....this work is informative and provocative in interpretation." H.M. Ward, Choice

"This clearly written and solidly researched overview of Indian and white relations in the Ohio Valley provides an excellent place to begin any study of the region." R. Douglas Hunt, The Journal of American History

"Elusive Empires is an imaginative, elegantly written account of the imperial contest for the Ohio Valley from the arrival of French explorers and missionaries in the late seventeenth century to the final triumph of American interests in the decade that followed the Revolution." Susan E. Gray, The North Carolina Historical Review

"His analysis of the various cultures is fascinating." Lee Soltow, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Elusive Empires is well written, and Hinderaker has advanced the understanding of relations between Europeans, Euroamericans, and Native Americans by synthesizing old and new scholarship." David L. Kimbrough, Journal of Illinois History

"Elusive Empires is well written, and Hinderaker has advnaced the understanding of relations between Europeans, Euroamericans, and Native Americans by synthesizing old and new scholarship." David L. Kimbrough, Journal of International History

"This thoughtful study, based upon wide research in various sources, makes useful distinctions among the three types of frontier empires." The Journal of the Early Republic

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0521663458
• ISBN 13: 9780521663458
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320