The author of Supreme Command and one of today’s leading thinkers on military affairs recounts the tumultuous history of “The Great Warpath,” the corridor between Albany and Montreal where the American way of battle was formed from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century.Americans are accustomed to seeing the Civil War as the conflict that shaped their country. Offering a fresh, historical perspective, Eliot A. Cohen explains that America’s geopolitics and military culture were influenced in more fundamental ways by an earlier, more protracted war between “north” and “south.” Cohen’s masterful narrative vividly details how five peoples—the British, French, Americans, Canadians, and Indians—spent more than 100 years fighting over what was the key to the North American continent: the corridor running from Albany to Montreal known to Native Americans as “The Great Warpath.” Focusing on a series of pivotal battles between 1689 and 1812, The Great Warpath demonstrates how they gave birth to a distinctively American approach to war as well as a particularly American military identity. Filled with colorful characters in a surprising light—an admirable Benedict Arnold and disloyal George Washington—The Great Warpath is one of the most significant and original contributions to American history in recent years.