Grenier, John 1967–

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Grenier, John 1967–

PERSONAL:

Born 1967. Education: University of Colorado, Boulder, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, U.S. Air Force Academy, 2354 Fairchild Dr., Ste 6F-101, USAFA, CO 80840; fax: 719-333-2970. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, educator. U.S. Air Force, lieutenant colonel; United States Air Force Academy, USAFA, CO, associate professor of history.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Distinguished Book Award, Society for Military History, 2006, for The First Way of War.

WRITINGS:

The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 2008.

Contributor to American Studies International and Technology and Culture.

SIDELIGHTS:

John Grenier is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and an associate professor of history at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado. He has published two books about irregular or unconventional warfare tactics in early North American history.

In The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814, Grenier "argues and illustrates how America developed its unique military heritage and style of war making based upon irregular warfare," according to Daniel Sauerwein in Frontier Battles. These irregular warfare tactics included burning an opponent's crops and houses and killing noncombatants. They were learned when colonists began fighting Indians. Unable to engage the Indians—who preferred hit-and-run tactics—in formal battle, the colonists began instead to destroy their crops and food stockpiles. Grenier traces the use of such tactics through the American Revolution, the Indian wars, and the War of 1812. In his introduction to the book, Grenier stated: "This study began as an attempt to address one of early American military history's most perplexing ambiguities and contradictions: the place and relationship between what we today know as unlimited war and what eighteenth-century writers termed petite guerre (little war) in the American military tradition." "Grenier's book is lucid and well written," Joseph P. Alessi wrote in the Military Review. Sauerwein concluded that the book "adds greatly to the scholarship of both American history and US Army history." Writing in the Journal of Southern History, Samuel Watson found that The First Way of War is "a valuable contribution to the study of eighteenth-century military ideas and expertise." Ethan S. Rafuse, writing in War in History, concluded: "The First Way of War is an outstanding and important work of scholarship that should become required reading for anyone with an interest in early American history, the history of warfare in general, the heritage of petite guerre in particular, and the evolution of the American approach to war." Grenier won the Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History for The First Way of War.

Grenier turns his attention to Nova Scotia in his The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. The study traces the history of English-French conflict over the Canadian maritime province of Nova Scotia. For some fifty years, the French and their Indian allies fought the English and their American colonist allies for control of the region. Both sides used ruthless tactics and, once the French had lost the area, the British forced the French Acadian settlers to move out and resettle in New Orleans. Focusing on the military tactics used by both sides, Grenier's book is "a heavily researched study, featuring detailed notes, a bibliography, and an index for quick reference," wrote a critic for Internet Bookwatch, who concluded that the book is "enthusiastically recommended for North American military history shelves."