The Upper Country: French Enterprise in the Colonial Great Lakes

The Upper Country melds myth and conventional history to provide a memorable tale of French designs in the middle of what became the United States. Putting the reader on the battlefields, at the trading posts, and on the rivers with voyageurs and their allies from the Indian nations, Claiborne Skinner reveals the saintly missionaries and jolly fur traders of popular myth as agents of a hard—nosed, often ruthless, imperial endeavor.

Skinner’s engaging narrative takes the reader through daily...