The Scratch of a Pen - Book Report/Review Example

The British reacted by deploying combat troops in the 13 regions to re-impose direct ruling. Through the Second Continental Parliament, these regions then established the armed conflict in reaction to the English Empire known as the American Revolutionary War or also the American War of Freedom. The warfare was fought from 1775 to 1783. Ever since, numerous publications have been created trying to enlighten the reader on this matter, and one of them is Calloway (2007). The author focused specifically on this matter, the transformation of North American, and; hence, the name of the book, The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America.

This paper will review the book plus analyze the positive and the downbeat sides of it. For a volume focused nearly entirely on the proceedings of one year, 1763, Colin G. Calloway's most recent work leaves the reader with a thorough look at a far bigger part of North American colonial history. Few books, in fact, attempt so much by discussing so little. Calloway starts with the ostensibly simple task of investigating the events neighboring the peace of 1763. In doing so, the author opens a practical Pandora's box, attempting a myriad of challenges circulating the theme of change or transformation.

Stopping short of referring to 1763 as a complete fracture, the author successfully navigates a sea of difficulties, discussing the weighty changes, which arose from the Treaty of Paris, though reminding the reader of the restrictions of change, surrounded by the traversing lines of societal continuity. After all, kingdoms could be swapped, and the boundaries of North America retraced with the graze of a pen, but life on the ground was not virtually as fast to bend to the caprices of colonial grand designs.

As the author reminds the reader, family was more significant than empire, prayer more significant than political regimes, weather more significant than global news (Calloway 42). In February 1763, according to Calloway (12), Britain, France and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Indian and French War. In this one treaty, more American terrain changed possession than in any agreement since or before. As the well known historian Francis Parkman argued, America lost authority over its own terrain with the scratch of a pen.

As the author reveals, in this outstanding history, the agreement between Britain, France and Spain set in motion a flow of unforeseen consequences. Europeans and Indians, frontiersmen and settlers, all struggled to adapt to new-fangled territories, new relationships and new alignments. Britain, after the signing of the treaty, possessed a vast majority of the American empire stretching from the Florida Keys to Canada, but the high costs of sustaining it would push its American colonies towards revolt (Calloway 67).

Europeans, free to settle anywhere in the West, poured in like never seen before with Indian communities struggling to protect their manner of life. In the southwest of Canada, Pontiac's War led to racial conflict to its worst level ever seen. Whole tribal groups shifted, at times all over the continent. It was in 1763, which the book discusses, that witnessed numerous expelled settlers from Acadia in French Canada shift once more to Louisiana, where they would convert into Cajuns.