In The Seven Years’ War: Global Views, Mark H. Danley, Patrick J. Speelman, and sixteen other contributors reach beyond traditional approaches to illuminate the conflict as world war. An introduction addresses the challenges of discretely defining the war. Chapters examine theaters such as the Carnatic, Bengal, the Philippines, Portugal, Senegal, and the Caribbean. Other chapters treat understudied topics such as the Anglo-Cherokee campaigns, Sweden’s participation, Ottoman neutrality, the Vatican, European perceptions of Cossacks and Kalmyks, the Enlightenment and the war, the choosing of sides in Europe and North America, social and political aspects of French and British military life, operational reconnaissance, and the war’s complex ending in western Germany. A conclusion situates the war as a marker of modernity.
Contributors are in order of appearance: Juergen Luh, Armstrong Starkey, Matthew C. Ward, G.J. Bryant, Johannes Burkhardt, Gunnar Aselius, Virginia H. Aksan, Julia Osman, Ewa Anklam, Mrian Fuessel, James Searing, Richard Harding, John Oliphant, Mark H. Danley, Patrick J. Speelman, Nicholas Tracy, and Matt Schumann.