From the back cover:

"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. On battlefields, at trading posts, and on rivers with voyageurs and their allies from the Indian nations, Claiborne A. Skinner reveals how the saintly missionaries and jolly fur traders of popular myth served as agents of hard-nosed, often ruthless, imperial project.

Skinner's engaging narrative explores daily life at posts like Fort Saint Louis and Michilimackinac, illuminates the complexities of interracial marriage with the courtship of Michel Aco at Peoria, and explains how French New World adventurism played a role in the outbreak of the Seven Years War and remarkable Native American-European cultural exchanges.

In this story, many of the traditional heroes and villains of American history take on surprising roles. The last Stuart kings of England seem shrewd and even human; George Washington makes his debut on the stage of history by assassinating a French officer and plunging Europe into the first truly global war.

From accounts of unthinkable hardship to dreams of fur-trade profits, Skinner's work reexamines New France and its ambitions along the Great Lakes."

• Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press; Illustrated edition (June 27, 2008)
• Language : English
• Paperback : 224 pages
• ISBN-10 : 0801888387
• ISBN-13 : 978-0801888380
• Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
• Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.59 x 8.5 inches