The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757

About the book

During the struggle between British and French forces in North America, a party travelling towards a frontier fort becomes exposed to dangers it cannot understand alone. Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas bring knowledge and relationships that formal rank cannot supply. Cooper joins pursuit and rescue to questions about trust across cultural divisions, while Cora and Alice Munro's vulnerability gives the journey immediate personal stakes. Forests, waterways, concealment, and the reading of signs make landscape essential to the action. The book also carries assumptions and romantic constructions of Indigenous life that readers must distinguish from historical description. Its narrative power lies in the interaction between intimate attachment and political conflict, where a decision made for one person's safety can acquire consequences within a much wider struggle.

• War and allegiance
• Cross-cultural trust
• Landscape

Why read it

For sustained wilderness suspense and the shifting dependence of travellers on knowledge outside their own social world.

English text