Book excerpt: When Nellis M. Crouse’s Lemoyne d’Iberville was originally published in 1954, the New York Times declared that “Mr. Crouse’s study of Iberville closes a gap in North American historical biography.” Indeed, this book is the first and only full-length English-language biography of the great leader of French Louisiana, who lived from 1661 to 1706. Though scholarship in French colonial history has increased greatly since it was first released, Crouse’s work still has much to offer. He explores the Canadian origins and military career of Iberville and his campaigns at Hudson Bay, upper New York, Maine, and Nova Scotia, vividly depicting all the wrath and barbarity of seventeenth-century warfare. Crouse emphasizes the relationship between private gain and public service in Iberville’s rise through the ranks of the French navy, outlining how his quest for booty and trade steered his military actions, and stresses the importance of family networks in both the commerce and government of New France. With a new introduction by Daniel H. Usner, Jr., to set the book in historiographical perspective, this edition of Lemoyne d’Iberville provides scholars and students alike with a fresh perspective on this remarkable colonial figure.