Francis Parkman (1823--1893), struggling against painful chronic illnesses and very largely self-taught in his field, was not only a pioneering historian but an enduring one. His monumental seven-volume history of discovery, conquest, and empire-building in the New World, France and England in North America (the final volume, Montcalm and Wolfe, is available in its entirety from Da Capo Press/ Perseus Books Group), remains unrivaled for its power, depth, scope, accuracy, and literary artistry. This reader, superbly edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, the Pulitzer Prize--winning historian in the Parkman tradition, comprises approximately one-seventh of the original.
Rather than stitch together a patchwork of brief, disconnected extracts, Morison has chosen whole chapters or groups of chapters, thereby allowing the reader to follow a story from start to finish, and what stories they are: Champlain's efforts to establish a French empire in the vast forest wilderness; the torture and martyrdom of Father Jogues; La Salle's western expeditions and his murder by mutineers; the bloody Deerfield Massacre; the improbable, madcap, and successful siege of Louisbourg; the swift, dramatic battle on Quebec's Plains of Abraham, in which the fate of a continent was decided; and much more. The result is both an enthralling portrait of early North American colonial history and an unsurpassed introduction to the works of Francis Parkman.
- ISBN10 0306808234
- ISBN13 9780306808234
- Publish Date 1 April 1998
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher INGRAM PUBLISHER SERVICES US
- Imprint Da Capo Press Inc
- Format Paperback
- Pages 552
- Language English