The War for America's Natural Resources

This book analyzes the dynamic relationship among natural resource politics, policies, and philosophies. Each chapter explores in depth the development of policies towards the US's soil, wildlife, water, energy, grasslands, minerals, forests, and air.

Business & Money

Nester, William R.

Economics

St.Martin's Press

Japan's Growing Predominance Over East Asia and the World Economy

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

Japanese Industrial Targeting: The Neomercantilist Path to Economic Superpower

Reference

American Industrial Policy: Free or Managed Market

MACMILLAN PUB. LTD.

The Epic Battles for Ticonderoga, 1758

A history of the military campaigns near Fort Ticonderoga, New York, in 1758.

History

Americas

State University of New York Press

A history of the military campaigns near Fort Ticonderoga, New York, in 1758. On July 8, 1758, British General James Abercromby ordered a controversial frontal assault of the French defenses on the Ticonderoga peninsula in upstate New York. Outnumbering the French by four to one, the capture of their fort, named Carillon, seemed all but assured. Once the fort―called the “key to a continent”―was in British hands the road would be open to invade Canada, capture Montreal and Quebec, and end the French and Indian War. The attack, however, would go horribly wrong and result in nearly 2,000 British casualties, the single bloodiest day of the entire war. It would be another year before the British, under a different commander, would capture the fortifications and rename them Fort Ticonderoga. The Epic Battles for Ticonderoga, 1758 examines the skirmishes and raids in the months leading up to the battle, discusses Abercromby’s campaign in the larger context of British grand strategy for the year 1758, the roles of key military and political figures on both sides, and the conflict’s aftermath.

George Rogers Clark (1752–1818) led four victorious campaigns against the Indians and British in the Ohio Valley during the American Revolution, but his most astonishing coup was recapturing Fort Sackville in 1779, when he was only twenty-six. For eighteen days, in the dead of winter, Clark and his troops marched through bone-chilling nights to reach the fort. With a deft mix of guile and violence, Clark led his men to triumph, without losing a single soldier. Although historians have ranked him among the greatest rebel commanders, Clark’s name is all but forgotten today. William R. Nester resurrects the story of Clark’s triumphs and his downfall in this, the first full biography of the man in more than fifty years. Nester attributes Clark’s successes to his drive and daring, good luck, charisma, and intellect. Born of a distinguished Virginia family, Clark wielded an acute understanding of human nature, both as a commander and as a diplomat. His interest in the natural world was an inspiration to lifelong friend Thomas Jefferson, who asked him in 1784 to lead a cross-country expedition to the Pacific and back. Clark turned Jefferson down. Two decades later, his youngest brother, William, would become the Clark celebrated as a member of the Corps of Discovery. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, though, George Rogers Clark may not have been fit to command any expedition. After the revolution, he raged against the government and pledged fealty to other nations, leading to his arrest under the Sedition Act. The inner demons that fueled Clark’s anger also drove him to excessive drinking. He died at the age of sixty-five, bitter, crippled, and alcoholic. He was, Nester shows, a self-destructive hero: a volatile, multidimensional man whose glorying in war ultimately engaged him in conflicts far removed from the battlefield and against himself.

George Rogers Clark: "I Glory in War"

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

University of Oklahoma Press

The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France

The French and Indian War was the world’s first truly global conflict. When the French lost to the British in 1763, they lost their North American empire along with most of their colonies in the Caribbean, India, and West Africa. In The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France, the only comprehensive account from the French perspective, William R. Nester explains how and why the French were defeated. He explores the fascinating personalities and epic events that shaped French diplomacy, strategy, and tactics and determined North America’s destiny.  What began in 1754 with a French victory―the defeat at Fort Necessity of a young Lieutenant Colonel George Washington―quickly became a disaster for France. The cost in soldiers, ships, munitions, provisions, and treasure was staggering. France was deeply in debt when the war began, and that debt grew with each year. Further, the country’s inept system of government made defeat all but inevitable. Nester describes missed diplomatic and military opportunities as well as military defeats late in the conflict.  Nester masterfully weaves his narrative of this complicated war with thorough accounts of the military, economic, technological, social, and cultural forces that affected its outcome. Readers learn not only how and why the French lost, but how the problems leading up to that loss in 1763 foreshadowed the French Revolution almost twenty-five years later.  One of the problems at Versailles was the king’s mistress, the powerful Madame de Pompadour, who encouraged Louis XV to become his own prime minister. The bewildering labyrinth of French bureaucracy combined with court intrigue and financial challenges only made it even more difficult for the French to succeed. Ultimately, Nester shows, France lost the war because Versailles failed to provide enough troops and supplies to fend off the English enemy.

When the leaders of the French Revolution executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793, they sent a chilling message to the hereditary ruling orders in Europe. Believing that monarchy anywhere presented a threat to democratic rule in France, the leaders of the revolution declared war on European aristocracies, including those of Great Britain. For more than twenty years thereafter, France and England waged a protracted war that ended in British victory. In Titan, William R. Nester offers a deeply informed and thoroughly fascinating narrative of how England accomplished this remarkable feat. Between 1789 and 1815, British leaders devised, funded, and led seven coalitions against the revolutionary and Napoleonic governments of France. In each enterprise, statesmen and generals searched for order amid a complex welter of bureaucratic, political, economic, psychological, technological, and international forces. Nester combines biographies of great men—the likes of William Pitt, Horatio Nelson, and Arthur Wellesley—with an explanation of the critical decisions they made in Britain’s struggle for power and his own keen analysis of the forces that operated beyond their control. Their efforts would eventually crush France and Napoleon and establish a system of European power relations that prevented a world war for nearly a century. The interplay of individuals and events, the importance of conjunctures and contingency, the significance of Britain's island character and resources: all come into play in Nester's exploration of the art of British military diplomacy. The result is a comprehensive and insightful account of the endeavors of statesmen and generals to master the art of power in a complex battle for empire.

Titan: The Art of British Power in the Age of Revolution and Napoleon

Europe

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