Empire and Frontier
by Samuel Marquis

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: History

Empire and Frontier follows Colonel Peter Schuyler in New York during King William’s War (1689–1701), showcasing alliances and conflicts with various Native American groups, the French, and other colonists. The language in the synopsis led me to think this might be a fictionalized story of this time in history, but it’s actually nonfiction. While that’s fine, it just wasn’t quite what I was looking for. Weirdly, though, there are moments where it becomes more subjective than I’d expect a history book to be, with the author attributing feelings and reflections to various people in the book—details I find difficult to believe are described to that degree in letters or journals. The author also seems to include some bias for or against some of the historical figures in the book, religions involved, things like that.

There’s a pretty in-depth list of all historical figures involved at the front of the book, which I mostly read through, but that turned out to be unnecessary, because the same details given there are also given each time one of those people is first introduced in the book. That and other repetitive sections caused me to start skimming the book in parts. The book would zoom out and cover several months quickly, and then zoom in and focus on a battle in detail, which made the flow a little hard to follow. I will say, though, that the battle descriptions were some of the most interesting parts in the book. I could have done without explanation of some of the ways people were “slow tortured” by their enemy though.

It’s not that I didn’t find anything of interest in the book, and I can definitely see it being fascinating to history buffs. If you’re looking for historical fiction, this isn’t that, but if you enjoy reading about history, are interested in this time period in American history, and are okay with some subjectivity by the author, then you may be the right audience for this book.

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