ins very detailed accounts of the major battles fought on North American soil. This begins with the settling of North America by the British and French and their battle for dominance. Next, Keegan covers The Revolutionary War (or The War of Independence, as it is called in England). Then we are informed about the Civil War, wars against the native Indians, and finally about the invention of the airplane and its importance and effect on warfare in more recent years. Fields of Battle was written to be a history book with the added focus on geography’s role in America’s warfare. Keegan points out that American warfare was different from European warfare, because those who fought battles on American soil were unfamiliar with the landscape on which they were waging war, while Europe was settled thousands of years before North America was. He says, “It is not accidental that Champlain, the founder of French Canada, was a skilled mapmaker or that George Washington, the victor of the War of American Independence, was by profession a surveyor who had recorded the topography of wide areas of the back country over which he was later to campaign” (09). That is certainly an excellent point to make. They fought European wars on the North American landscape. Undoubtedly, this was a large factor in our victory over England in the Revolutionary War. The Americans had a far better understanding of the land, while maps were largely unavailable to England. Keegan made another very good point at the beginning of Fields of Battle. He said that the inscription on The Statue of Liberty welcoming in the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, coupled with the tracings of the star-shaped bastions of Fort Wood (used in defense against the British Royal Navy) is a paradox. Here America is beckoning people to come and start a new life within her borders, whereas she spent the last two hundred years of her existence, kicking peo...
