[books i've been reading]

I finished this 600-page narrative on the French and Indian War in less time than it took me to read a 250-page history on the same subject. Reviews of Eckert's The Dark and Bloody River spoke of how his other books were far better, and though I didn't believe it could be possible (since I loved that book so much), those reviews have been spot-on ("solid," one might say). Eckert weaves an amazing story of the French and Indian War, focusing mostly on the events leading up to it (I found his retelling of the Celeron Expedition down the Ohio River to be downright fascinating), and then covering the war's major battles through the lens of the native Americans involved. What I appreciate most about Eckert's writing is his "Amplification Notes." As with any historical events, eyewitness testimonies often differ in details; Eckert, writing a narrative history, takes one of the accounts and builds his story off it, giving credence to the other accounts through the amplification notes at the end of the book. This means he's able to choose readings of the events that fit to the story he's wanting to tell, without sacrificing historicity. 

Next up in my reading queue are two books on the American Revolution, and then it's back to Eckert with his follow-up to Wilderness Empire, his novel The Conquerors, which focuses on "Pontiac's Rebellion" in the eclipse of the French and Indian War (I'm interested to see how he interprets the events, since there are two major streams of interpretation when it comes to Pontiac's War, one being that he orchestrated the whole thing, and the other that Pontiac dealt chiefly with Fort Detroit and other Indians followed suit on their own incentives).