Fields of Battle:
The Wars for North America
By John Keegan
Knopf, 348 pages, $30
The author of this book is a strange Englishman; he actually loves this country, everything about it, even the unattractive things we all know exist. Wherever he goes in the United States he looks forward to what he calls “the certainty of identical food and service and accommodation.” The complete cultural uniformity of this country he finds “profoundly relaxing.” Strange.
Keegan swears he has never encountered anything but kindness during the many years he has lived here. Another strange remark, until one realizes that the roads he has traveled throughout the United States over the last 40 years were privileged roads paved with scholarships, fellowships, lectureships, appointments at prestigious universities, and book-promotion tours. Moreover, Keegan has been honored and handsomely rewarded in this country–far more than in his own–for his many studies of the science of warfare.
The title of his latest book, “Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America,” might lead a reader to expect a discussion of the many armed conflicts by which the U.S. and Great Britain ultimately conquered the North American continent. Instead, what Keegan offers is more of a memoir of the many trips he has made to this country and Canada–50 or more–to visit various battlegrounds in pursuit of his study of modern warfare.
In his first chapter, “One Englishman’s America,” he tells much about his early life and how he came to love the United States. In the process he makes a number of shrewd and insightful observations about the country and its people. For one thing, he contends that Americans, unlike Europeans, live in space, not time. “Time is space for Americans,” he writes. Space devours time and dominates our lives as we constantly move from one town, one state, one coast to another, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He maintains that although the United States is the land of equality and opportunity, it is also a land where the strongest do best. And that, he acknowledges, is the theme of this book.
Despite Keegan’s love of the U.S., he admits he is not at home here. America is a mystery to him, and although he loves the mystery and loves Americans, they are strangers to him–even his American friends. At a young age he was tempted to settle here, but he found he was not brave enough for the great adventure of emigration. It takes stupendous courage, faith and the need to throw off the life and culture of the old world to seek another life in the new.
After this long, personal introduction, Keegan swings into the main body of the book–the wars for North America. He singles out four: the struggle between France and Great Britain for Canada, the American Revolution, the Civil War and the war with the Plains Indians. The last three efforts to win independence from British domination, unite a vast territory into a single nation, and protect itself from the Indians. He concludes with a short chapter on the first heavier-than-air flight by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, N.C., in 1903, which has led to the United States being able to “extinguish autocracy and dictatorship in the world outside.”
In each of these chapters, except the last, Keegan builds his narrative to a central battle, providing detailed political and military history along the way. And every battle is superbly told. They include the Plains of Abraham, Yorktown, the Peninsula campaign and Custer’s Last Stand. Most valuable, and certainly the best parts of the book, are the many biographical details and character analyses he offers of the people involved in these engagements. He carefully examines all the strategies involved and why they failed or succeeded. He addresses important questions and problems concerning these battles and dispenses well-reasoned explanations.
Keegan concludes by admitting that despite the many years he has spent here, the United States continues to elude him. He thinks he understands Canada, and that may be on account of the familiarity of its customs and culture. But the mystery of the U.S. remains. War made this country what it is, he declares. The American people hate the very idea of war, and yet through their power to wage war they have come to dominate the world. To Americans, war is like work. They are proficient at work and, therefore, proficient at making war.
A strange Englishman has written a strange book, but one that is engagingly written and unfailingly informative.
