This book, first published in 1997, examines the efforts of France, Britain, and the United States to extend imperial dominion over the Ohio Valley, focusing on the relations between Europeans and Indians to tell the story. It treats empires as cross-cultural constructions whose details were negotiated by their participants, not directed from London, Paris, or Philadelphia. Hinderaker argues that three models of empire competed for acceptance in the region: empires of commerce and of land, each of which was attempted by both the French and the British, and an empire of liberty, which grew out of the American Revolution and eventually became the basis for Euro-American occupation of the valley. The result is a fascinating story that carefully considers the wealth of recent scholarship on the West, but simultaneously offers a strikingly new interpretation of the American Revolution and its legacy in the relations between Indians and the new American nation.

"In this day of increasingly narrow historical specialization, this book is wonderfully expansive." J. Russel Snapp, The Virginia Magazine

"Hinderaker is at his best in depicting the Ohio Valley and Mississippian Indian cultures and economies, and in contrasting the British/Colonial and French experiences in opening the Ohio Valley frontier....this work is informative and provocative in interpretation." H.M. Ward, Choice

"This clearly written and solidly researched overview of Indian and white relations in the Ohio Valley provides an excellent place to begin any study of the region." R. Douglas Hunt, The Journal of American History

"Elusive Empires is an imaginative, elegantly written account of the imperial contest for the Ohio Valley from the arrival of French explorers and missionaries in the late seventeenth century to the final triumph of American interests in the decade that followed the Revolution." Susan E. Gray, The North Carolina Historical Review

"Elusive Empires is an imaginative, elegantly written account of the imperial contest for the Ohio Valley from the arrival of French explorers and missionaries in the late seventeenth century to the final triumph of American interests in the decade that followed the Revolution." Susan E. Gray, The North Carolina Historical Review

"His analysis of the various cultures is fascinating." Lee Soltow, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Elusive Empires is well written, and Hinderaker has advanced the understanding of relations between Europeans, Euroamericans, and Native Americans by synthesizing old and new scholarship." David L. Kimbrough, Journal of Illinois History

"Elusive Empires is well written, and Hinderaker has advnaced the understanding of relations between Europeans, Euroamericans, and Native Americans by synthesizing old and new scholarship." David L. Kimbrough, Journal of International History

"Elusive Empires is well written, and Hinderaker has advnaced the understanding of relations between Europeans, Euroamericans, and Native Americans by synthesizing old and new scholarship." David L. Kimbrough, Journal of International History

"This thoughtful study, based upon wide research in various sources, makes useful distinctions among the three types of frontier empires." The Journal of the Early Republic