The First Way of War
American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814

This 2005 book shows how war waged against Indian noncombatant population and agricultural resources became the method early Americans employed.

John Grenier (Author)

9780521732635, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 15 September 2008

248 pages
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.39 kg

"The First Way of Ware is a well-researched and thought-provoking work overall. In addition, the historiographical magnitude of Grenier's arguments alone should make it required reading for serious students of early American military history."
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Wesley T. Joyner, University of Southern Mississippi

This 2005 book explores the evolution of Americans' first way of war, to show how war waged against Indian noncombatant population and agricultural resources became the method early Americans employed and, ultimately, defined their military heritage. The sanguinary story of the American conquest of the Indian peoples east of the Mississippi River helps demonstrate how early Americans embraced warfare shaped by extravagant violence and focused on conquest. Grenier provides a major revision in understanding the place of warfare directed on noncombatants in the American military tradition, and his conclusions are relevant to understand US 'special operations' in the War on Terror.

Introduction
1. The First Way of War's origins in Colonial America
2. The First Way of War in the North American wars of King George II, 1739–55
3. Continental and British Petite Guerre, circa 1750
4. The First Way of War in the Seven Years' War, 1754–63
5. The First Way of War in the era of the American Revolution
6. The First Way of War in the 1790s
7. The First Way of War and the final conquest of the transappalachian West.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]