Description
Book SynopsisThe story of what happened at the colonial fortified town of Louisbourg between 1749 and 1758 is one of the great dramas of the history of Canada, indeed North America. This book presents the dramatic military and social history of this short-lived and significant fortress, seaport, and community, and the citizens who made it their home.
Trade Review"For Johnston, a longtime historian with Parks Canada,
Endgame 1758 is a fitting capstone to a career devoted to French colonial Louisbourg, and of all the author’s books the one most obviously written with a cross-over audience in mind. The prose is often appropriately dramatic, and colourful individuals and narrative drive play a greater role than in Johnston’s earlier work, which of necessity is more quantitative and analytical in nature."—Philip Girard,
Literary Review of Canada"Based on exhaustive and meticulous research in French, British and British and French colonial records, [
Endgame 1758] successfully places the events leading to the fall of Louisbourg within the mid-18th-century Atlantic world. Johnston uses his well-sustained chess metaphor to carefully reconstruct the movement of opposing fleets, military strategies and engagements that form the central focus of the monograph. . . . While offering a wealth of rich detail about the naval and military engagements that led to the final defeat of Louisbourg as well as the social and commercial aspects of life in the fortified town, it is a highly readable book."—Canadian Historical Association
"Johnston makes full use of the array of new and older resources in his
Endgame 1758. In a well written, balanced, and researched analysis, he puts that campaign in a historic, cultural, and strategic context. . . . A very welcome and needed addition to the literature on the French and Indian War."—William Nester,
Journal of Military History"Johnston's excellent research reveals much about this isolated outpost that was so crucial to the leaders of Europe's most powerful countries for the duration of this one eventful decade."—David T. Flaherty,
American Review of Canadian Studies"No scholar could be better qualified to recount the final years of France's great North American fortress and naval base than A. J. B. Johnston. . . . Johnston's research is exhaustive and impeccably grounded in French and British primary sources; his prose is lucid; his interpretations are modest, plausible, and humane. His account of Louisbourg's fall will remain the standard narrative for a long, long time."—Fred Anderson,
American Historical Review"A. J. B. Johnston's
Endgame 1758, combined with his
Life and Religion at Louisbourg, 1713–1758 (1996), constitutes the definitive modern study of the social and military career of France's colonial Cape Breton fortress and town."—Reginald C. Stuart,
Journal of American HistoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgements
Terminology and Dates
List of Illustrations
Prologue: The Book Ahead
Chapter 1:
Opening Moves, 1749
Chapter 2: Middle Game, 1750-1755
Chapter 3:
The Match Heightens, 1756-1757
Chapter 4: Beginning of the End, Early 1758
Chapter 5: This Time For Real, 1-7 June 1758
Chapter 6: Attack and Defend, 8 June-27 July 1758
Chapter 7: Winner Take All
Appendices
