It's really quite simple. If you're looking for one book to read on why London lost its contest with the American "Patriots," this is the book you want to read. Carpenter, a man who teaches admirals-to-be about history, and who respects Lord Cornwallis, applies modern analysis to the conflict and finds a state that simply didn't have the structure to assert the long-distance control American Secretary Germaine aspired to, a theater commander (Gen. Clinton) whose heart really wasn't in the fight, and a field commander (Cornwallis) who could not string all his successful battles together into a victorious campaign. Though the single biggest issue was simply that there were never enough "Loyalists" to hold the territory Cornwallis cleared, while those parties of a neutral mindset, when push came to shove, chose the Patriot cause. None of this is actually news, but what Carpenter does is to make the story fresh so that it has relevance for contemporary military affairs. ( )