Raymond Seitz
The Original Action Man
White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America
By Fintan O’Toole
Faber & Faber 320pp £20 order from our bookshop
Baron Jean-Armand de Dieskau, commander of the combined French, Canadian and Indian forces, was hit three times in the legs and once in the hip, and he crawled through the New York thicket to the shelter of a tree. In the confusion of the forest battle that raged on the southern shoreline of Lake George, he was abandoned to his fate. That fate could have been pretty grisly. Had Dieskau been found by one of the Mohawks who fought with the British forces on that September day in 1755, he surely would have been dispatched and scalped.
Instead, Dieskau was discovered by American militiamen and carried to the tent of their commander, William Johnson. Johnson, too, had been severely wounded in the fight, but he insisted that his medical officers treat the Baron’s wounds first, a beau geste which could only have happened between European adversaries in
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'"The Last Colony" is, among other things, part of the campaign to shift the British position through political pressure. As with all good propaganda, Sands’s case is based in truth, if not the whole of it.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/empire-strikes-back
'To her enemies she was the alien temptress who led Charles I away from the "true religion" of Protestantism and towards royal absolutism.'
Lucy Hughes-Hallett reviews @LeandadeLisle's 'colourful', 'persuasive' new biography of Henrietta Maria.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/royalist-generalissima
'Empathy is our moral portal gun, and it jams from underuse.'
Don Paterson on Portal 2, catching Covid on the Eurostar, and rereading Ian Hamilton’s 'Against Oblivion'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/portal-agony