The Midwest and Early American History (original) (raw)

Middle West Review

Abstract

counts of each military commandant of Fort de Chartres, the biographical approach is the perfect way to demonstrate and draw out the cosmopolitan lives of the offi cers who presided over Illinois Country under the French Regime. Exploring these offi cers as well as several key explorers, traders, and civilians (mostly those who got in legal trouble and so left traces in offi cial documents), MacDonald hunts down every clue in order to bring individual people to life. To his great credit, MacDonald only rarely gets bogged down in tedious details, and manages instead to keep his narratives lively and instructive not just about the individuals in question, but about colonial Illinois more broadly. Th is book will fi nd an enthusiastic audience among those interested in the local history of Illinois, but historians of the French empire and those interested in the colonial history of the Midwest should not miss it. Previous historians assumed most of what mattered in early America was what made it separate and exceptional. Th e Atlantic World turn has gone far to correct these assumptions, and to resituate early histories within broader contexts. Of course, the connectedness of early American places is especially important to stress in the case of the Midwest, so oft en ignored or dismissed as isolated backcountry and disconnected frontier. Th ese three wellwritten and insightful books help us see early midwestern history as it was, entangled in broad and important transnational processes, part of a dynamic Atlantic World in motion. Robert Michael Morrissey University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign UrbanaChampaign, Illinois

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