Northern Armageddon ― The Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Making of the American Revolution

A huge, ambitious re-creation of the eighteenth century Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the pivotal battle in the Seven Years' War (1754-1763) to win control of the trans-Appalachian region of North America, a battle consisting of the British and American colonists on one side and the French and the Iroquois Confederacy on the other and that led directly to the colonial War of Independence and the creation of Canada. A stunning work of military history, by the authority on the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and curator of the Canadian War Museum.

It was the culmination of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France that began five years before . . . It was a battle that lasted twenty minutes and at its finish changed the course of a continent: the Generals leading the troops on either side--James Wolfe and the Marquis Louis-Joseph Montcalm--each died of gunshot wounds . . . France surrendered Quebec . . . the British soon after took control of most of North America . . . with France's defeat, Britain's maritime and colonial supremacy was assured and their hold on the thirteen American colonies tightened . . . The participation of the American Colonists in helping to oust the French as a North American power, and bearing the burden of the war's expenses, spurred the confidence of colonies such as New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts that soon began to agitate for independence from Great Britain.

In Northern Armageddon, Peter MacLeod--using original research (diaries, journals, letters, and other personal accounts) and bringing to bear all of his knowledge and grasp of warfare and in particular the French and Indian War--tells the epic story from both sides and, for the first time, brilliantly casts this crucial battle on a human scale, from the first months of the campaign and the actual battle on the Plains of Abraham, to the French surrender and its large-scale ramifications on the shape of North America and, ultimately, Europe.

D. Peter MacLeod is an authority of colonial North American history and a curator at the Canadian War Museum, where he designed the permanent exhibits on the Seven Years' War and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. He is the author of The Canadian Iroquois and the Seven Years' War. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.