King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict

As a cold war sailor of twenty years from the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies, I had little experience of War until Vietnam; that was enough to make War itself my enemy. One may say we learn War from our enemies. I assert that we have War within us. Especially those forebearers of ours in the early colonial times. As a curiosity, I did a search of the wars that were listed in a major encyclopedia. I discovered pages of wars that the nations of Europe began in the fourteenth century until after the U.S. Revolution. Hints of allegory, Wars never ending, a War never over. England was involved in so many of them. The English that came here to New England in 1620 and those who soon followed had to suffer from some form of communal PTSD. War is always our enemy. We Europeans have lived here since and have seldom been free of war. And when we fight, we have the same severity, the same torture, the same blood, gore, pain (mental, emotional, physical). It must be in our DNA. We don't need a fearsome example to teach us how to wage the worst kind of War, for all our experiences of War is in our bones. As a person with war's worst either on my TV or now in my mind, even though I never fought War ashore, and as a Chaplain in a VA Medical Center for the last decade of working, I have listened to my fellow veterans' stories so often and so long that I have had their dreams of being in the mud in Vietnam and have woke up in a cold sweat, from nightmares so vivid, that if I had been asked in the moment of waking up I would have said "Yes, I was there ashore." And in the next moment, I would know that I was not. I highly recommend Jill Lepore's book. Bravo Zulu Historian Lepore!

I found this book to be an excellent resource because it goes beyond providing battle details to providing the historical context of the war.Few people have even heard of this war, and yet the causes of our Revolutionary War can be traced directly back to the outcome of King Philip's war, making this war very important to American history.This war played a pivotal role in American history, though few people know about it.When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, they immediately developed a friendly relationship with the Wampanoag Indians, who traded skins and furs for European manufactured goods.Problems arose in the 1660s. There was a generational change, signaled by the death of the chief of the Wampanoag, who was replaced by his son, nicknamed King Philip by the colonists. And there was a financial crisis, caused by changes in style among European women, who no longer wanted to purchase skins and furs. One thing led to another, and an extremely violent and brutal war broke out in 1675.The outcome of this war was that the colonists, who formerly were completely independent of the English Crown, now had to pay taxes to the Crown in return for the Crown's protection against future Indian attacks. The colonists accepted this arrangement because they thought they had to to survive, but by the 1760s they were no longer interested, leading to the Revolutionary War.This book provides many of the context details that help the reader understand the importance of this war to the entire panorama of American history.

I read the book. Then I read Mr. O'Keefe from Denver's review. The only thing I can think is that Mr. O'Keefe's edition was missing the first 80 pages. Those pages contain the best, most concise and "logical" history of the war available. After that the book becomes a travelogue (Mr. O'Keefe: a "collage") structured geographically that the Boston Globe raved about. All of the "detail" Mr. O'Keefe complained about allowed me to visit a half dozen of the sites that I would never have been able to find otherwise. If you want an unstructured collage beyond most amateur historians, read Lepore's book. If you want to understand King Philip's War, I would recommend this book (Schultz/Tougias) highly.

This wonderful book not only tells the stroy of King Philip's War with accuracy and detail, it also provides an excellent guide to the various sites throughout New England where key events in the war's history occurred. These are not the typical sites you'll find in Fodor's or at the chamber of commerce, but they provide insight into a (shamefully) forgotten but important period of American history. Take it along when you take your next trip to New England, and on your way to Lexington & Concord, make sure you visit a few sites form an earlier -- and equally pivotal-- American war.

I have read most everything written on King Philip's War in the last few years and this is by far the best. There's a brief but complete history of the war right up front, including some interesting details on pre-war New England and on the aftermath of the war. (Check out the section about the veterans!) Schultz and Tougias go out of their way to be even-handed in the description of battles; there's even a segment praising the Nipmuck's Muttawmp, perhaps the strongest military leader on either side. (He barely rates a mention in most texts.) The authors also question Canonchet's handling of the Great Swamp Fight and poke some holes in traditional descriptions of the engagement. Since I am from New England, though, I liked best the travelogue in section two. I have already visited the sites in Sudbury and Turner's Falls, and the book really brings them to life. There are several dozen illustrations and ten or more maps, and these really add to the text as well. This spring I intend to see a number of other sites, including Bloody Brook and Beer's Ambush. By contrast, Jill Lepore's book is excellent but very frustrating because it lacks a chronological history of the war. It's also written like a thesis, so the reader has to already have a good grasp of how the war unfolded in order to follow her argument. Leach's book is a classic but stops before the war ends in Maine, and gives no clue as to how to find any of the sites mentioned. (By the way, Leach praises Schultz and Tougias on the dustjacket!) Schultz and Tougias have written more the story of the war, and how to find the story. If you know nothing about King Philip's War, or want to get reacquainted with it, this should be the first text on your bookshelf. I highly recommend it.

I was absolutely amazed to read about the scope of this war, the high ratio of deaths to population, and the incredible impact it had on subsequent events here in New England and ultimately in the way we caucasians treated native americans all over North America. Though I do not read a lot of straight history, this story is so well written that it was a delight to read. It is rich in detail but is not heavy and tends to draw the reader (or me, at least) along. I strongly recommend this book for all ages teen-age and older.