This wide-ranging book is the first to offer---in one volume---detailed
        results of many of the investigations of French colonial sites made in
        the mid-continent during the last decade. It includes work done at Fort
        St. Louis, Fort de Chartres, Fort Massac, French Peoria, Cahokia, Prairie
        du Pont, Prairie du Rocher, and other locations controlled by the French
        during a time when their dominance in North America was more than twice
        that of Britain and Spain combined.
      Five of the book's fifteen chapters summarize major excavations at colonial
        fortifications, four of which are public monuments that currently attract
        thousands of visitors each year. Another five chapters deal with French
        colonial villages, and the remainder of the book is devoted to diet, trade,
        the role of historic documents in the reconstruction of life on the French
        colonial frontier, and other topics.