Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac's Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America
2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: 93; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/4486086
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoLively and engaging, David Dixon's Never Come to Peace Again is a highly detailed narrative account of the connection between the final outcome of the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution. Well-researched (at least in the available English sources), Dixon's book will be useful to readers looking for an introduction to the history of Pontiac's resistance. For a more analytical and interpretive approach to this history, however, specialists are better served by Gregory Evans Dowd's War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire (2002), a book with which Dixon's must inevitably be compared. There is room, of course, for two very different approaches, and our understanding of the monumental importance of the events of the summer of 1763 is enriched by the approach that Dixon takes. Dixon's literary style, his choice of the narrative form, and his frequent use of illustrations make Never Come to Peace Again a very approachable work. This is good in that it will open many minds to the importance of the armed resistance of thousands of Indian warriors to the establishment of an Anglo-American presence in the Ohio and Great Lakes regions. Pontiac and the warriors who followed his lead played a critical role in the coming of the American Revolution. Dixon notes that the “creation of a revolutionary fervor had more to do with hostility toward the Indians and a disdain for an unresponsive and distant government than with British economic policies, parliamentary representation, or the social and class consciousness that instigated revolutionary unrest in the urban areas” (p. 274). By raising this fundamental point Dixon helps give Native Americans a greater share of the North American past than has generally been allotted them.
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