Note: I hope she writes more.  Lepore is an excellent historian who can write clearly and with excitement yet has the talent of being emotionally detached and objective.Review criticism welcomed, but since it's already submitted, it's too late to change anything.  😛Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity.    New York: Vintage Books, 1998.    Jill Lepore?s account of King Philip?s War examines the various ways colonists viewed not only the war, but also their changing relationships towards relationships towards the Indians.  By relying on numerous primary source documents, Lepore shows how the writings about the war have reflected the evolving attitudes of the English as well as the Indians.  Lepore?s main theme is the writings.  The author starts off the book by telling the reader ?this is a study of war, and of how people write about it.?     In the Name of War is not a chronological account of King Philip?s War, but Lepore begins the first chapter writing about the unsolved murder of the Wampanoag Indian John Sassamon.  The author?s writing is compelling because she treats this as a murder mystery rather than a dry, historical account. Lepore explains how Sassamon?s murder was used as propaganda by both sides in order to justify the war.     The book is divided into chapters and sections, and the author uses specific incidents to convey her themes.  The first section, about the onset of the war, shows the relatively good relations between colonists and Indians up until Sassamon?s murder.  Staying with the theme of how the war was reported, Lepore presents various written documents beginning with those documents distributed by the English missionaries.  Also explained is how the growth of the printing press made these writings by John Eliot and other missionaries easily accessible to both Indian and colonist.  Lepore claims, ironically, that Sassamon was murdered for being literate because ?it marked him as a man who could not be trusted.?  After Sassamon?s death, Lepore brilliantly shows how this changed the dynamics of the Indian-settler relationships by documenting the decline in attempts to convert the Indians.  The second and third sections describe the actions and horrors of war.  The colonists viewed the Indians as uncivilized, brutal savages, yet Lepore also explains the cruelties committed against the Indians by the English.  Lepore shows how this conflict of emotions created a crisis of identity and also shows the rising racism of the colonists against all Indians.  Using many examples, Lepore clearly shows how this racism was spread by the use of printed propaganda; yet, the author does not fail in keeping a balanced account of showing the atrocities of both sides.  Lepore flows into the next section by giving detailed accounts of both Indian and English captives.  Primarily focusing on Mary Rowlandson?s captivity account, Lepore shows the physical and psychological dimensions of war and how it affected both English and Indian identities, and also shows how this forced the colonists to examine their own religious convictions. Primary sources are often used to explain the symbolism behind Algonquian practices of brutality and the rising fear of God abandoning the colonists.     In the last two sections, Lepore shows the culmination of the war and how this permanently changed the relationship between Indian and colonist as well as the shifted balance of power in New England. In the very interesting final section, Lepore shows the changes in attitude between colonists and Indians immediately following the war all the way up to the Revolutionary War and pre-Civil War era of American history.  Lepore chronicles the continuing brutality and mistreatment of Indians after King Philip?s War and how the Indians were used as propaganda against the British during the Revolutionary War.  Lepore concludes by examining John Augustus Stone?s 1829 play Metamora and how this helped create the idea of the mythical and distant Indian hero that helped form the Indian stereotype still prevalent in many white American?s minds.    Lepore achieved and surpassed her goal of proving her thesis by giving an objective account of King Philip?s War and its aftermath.  In the Name of War is a clearly written, well-researched, and well-documented study of the largest and bloodiest Indian war of New England.