The Seven Years’ War: Global Views ed. by Mark H. Danley and Patrick J. Speelman (review)

Although scholars often describe the Seven Years’ War of the mid-eighteenth century as the first truly global imperial conflict, very few attempt to examine it in its full scope and scale. The war in its entirety is, of course, too expansive a topic for a single scholar to master and so the vast majority of those who study the conflict confine themselves to particular theaters, combatants, or aspects of the struggle. Editors Mark H. Danley and Patrick J. Speelman have collected the work of a wide range of such scholars in this volume, which is the eightieth in Brill’s extensive series on the “History of Warfare.” The contributors’ analyses of the various ways in which the Seven Years’ War’s myriad participants engaged one another in regions throughout the globe offer readers new insights into diplomacy, state formation, public opinion, colonization, and the waging of war in the mid-eighteenth century. The end result is an extremely informative, thoughtprovoking body of work that expands our understanding of the bounds, the experiences, and the wide-ranging consequences of this seminal conflict.

In his introduction to the volume, Mark H. Danley observes that scholars have tended to focus their attention upon two central aspects of the Seven Years’ War: the conflict between Britain and France, especially in mainland North America, and Frederick the Great of Prussia’s struggle against his enemies in Europe. Danley maintains that in confining themselves to these topics, scholars have failed to contend fully with the war’s global nature. Although most of the contributors to this volume discuss the conflict in Europe and mainland North America, many who do so consider topics that have received relatively little scrutiny from scholars, such as the ill-fated Pomeranian War in Sweden, the failed Bourbon campaign in Portugal in 1762, Russia’s deployment of ethnic and irregular troops, and how Enlightenment philosophes responded to the Seven Years’ War. Other contributors examine the war as it played out in the Caribbean, India, the Philippines, and West Africa, and, interestingly, why the Ottomans opted not to engage in the conflict. Danley’s wish that scholars would move beyond traditional approaches notwithstanding, the majority of the contributors retain either the Anglo-French contest or Frederick the Great’s campaigns as organizing principles even as they investigate theaters or aspects of the war previously neglected by scholars. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Danley himself recognizes that without such broad conceptual frameworks, it becomes difficult to define the temporal bounds of the conflict or which belligerents’ struggles to include under the “umbrella” of the Seven Years’ War (p. xxix).

If the essays do not necessarily break new conceptual ground, they certainly work to broaden perspectives on the Seven Years’ War both in terms of topic and methodological approach. Danley justly notes that the essays “bring together narrative and analytical approaches; join operational military history with broader social, cultural, and political history; and expose aspects of the conflict that military historians have often overlooked or downplayed” (p. xxiv). Collectively, the essays address diplomacy, finance, politics, public opinion, and the influence of culture and society upon the waging of war alongside more traditional analyses of military strategy and operations. Unfortunately for readers of this extremely lengthy volume, the structure of the work does not offer clues concerning the specific themes addressed by particular essays. The editors do not articulate a clear rationale for the order in which the eighteen essays appear, though it does seem as if essays that examine the beginning of the war appear before those that concern themselves chiefly with events of the 1760s. Grouping these essays according to themes such as alliance-making, military culture, or the role of public opinion would not, of course, have done justice to the complexity of their individual discussions. Doing so, however, would have helped guide readers hoping to educate themselves, for instance...