I'm a history professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). Before becoming a full-time academic, I worked in the museum field for 34 years where much of my work occurred at Historic Fort York. It dates from 1793, but the site today mainly contains War of 1812 buildings and fortifications constructed between 1813 and 1815. During my time there, I developed the artefact collection, curated exhibits, and served as the historical expert in the re-restoration of the grounds and eight heritage structures (which included a 20-year archaeological project associated with the restoration work). Beyond my museum career, four of my books focus on the Anglo-American conflict of 1812-1815.
I wrote
A Mohawk Memoir from the War of 1812: John Norton - Teyoninhokarawen
This study is by far the best single-volume history of the war. John Stagg is a prolific, American-based historian, known in particular for his leadership in editing the Papers of James Madison, the president who took his country to war with Great Britain in 1812. Dr. Staggās book covers all the important themes about the conflict, and, despite having been published in 1983, has not been superseded. Anyone wanting a strong, detailed, and complete study could not find a better option.
Mr. Madisonās War is, however, a serious academic study, so some readers might find it āhard-going.ā There are other one-volume studies of the conflict in print, but most of them strike me as being more than a little deficient. Two of the most accessible and reliable standard-length overviews for those unwilling to take on John Stagg are J.M. Hitsmanās The Incredible War of 1812, updated and edited by well-known Canadian historian Donald E. Graves, and Donald R. HickeyāsThe War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, revised edition, by one of the most prominent American historians on the subject. For a short and concise history, people might like my War of 1812.
The 1813 American campaign against Montreal posed the most dangerous threat to Canadian security during the war until it climaxed with British victories at ChĆ¢teauguay and Cryslerās Farm. Oddly, it is not known as well as those that occurred on the Niagara Peninsula or in the territories surrounding the western end of Lake Erie.Field of Glory is a detailed and much appreciated narrative of that campaign. Any basic library of the war should include a least one comprehensive ground-level study of the fighting, and this book is one of the best of the genre, along with the other two that comprise Don Gravesās āForgotten Soldiers Trilogy,āWhere Right and Glory Lead! The Battle of Lundyās Lane, 1814; and All Their Glory Past: Fort Erie, Plattsburgh, and the Final Battle of the North, 1814.
In contrast, a large percentage of other campaign histories tend to be written by authors who have done less archival research than Mr. Graves has or who lack his depth of expertise on the armies, tactics, conditions, personalities, and other essential details needed for such studies. His books also benefit from extensive appendices that present each combatantās order of battle and other data for readers who get excited about such information, while both arm-chair historians and specialist scholars will enjoy the descriptive chapters, with their strong narrative drive, telling details, and fair-minded analysis.
One of the turning points in the War of 1812. In the fall of 1813 the largest army yet assembled by the United States invaded Canada, determined to capture Montreal. The courageous but ill-trained and badly led American forces were defeated by British, Canadian and native troops in two important encounters: the Battle of Chateuaguay and, above all, the Battle of Crysler's Farm, fought on a muddy field beside the St. Lawrence River.
Winner of the Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies.
Celebrating Mailer's centenary and the seventy-fifth publication of The Naked and the Dead, the book illustrates how Mailer remains a provocative presence in American letters.
From the debates of the nation's founders, to the revolutionary traditions of western romanticism,ā¦
Studies for general readers tend to be weak. An exception that logically would form an example of a popular writerās efforts in an essential library is John Sugdenās Tecumseh. The Indigenous history of the war is poorly understood, and often suffers from grim biases when non-specialists write about the First Nations. This text on the most famous of the conflictās Native participants presents readers with an accessible biography aimed at general audiences within the context of the wider issues that afflicted the Shawnees and other tribes of the āOld Northwestā in todayās Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and neighbouring regions. Another, older meritorious book is by Cherokee author R. David Edmunds, who wrote Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. Dr. Edmunds is well known for other important books in Indigenous history, and like British historian John Sugden, is well worth reading for his insights, presented through strong and interesting prose.
If Sitting Bull is the most famous Indian, Tecumseh is the most revered. Although Tecumseh literature exceeds that devoted to any other Native American, this is the first reliable biography--thirty years in the making--of the shadowy figure who created a loose confederacy of diverse Indian tribes that exted from the Ohio territory northeast to New York, south into the Florida peninsula, westward to Nebraska, and north into Canada.
A warrior as well as a diplomat, the great Shawnee chief was a man of passionate ambitions. Spurred by commitment and served by a formidable battery of personal qualities that made himā¦
We tend to reject older histories, but sometimes they maintain their currency and their importance ā and thus remain in print and would find a respectable berth on a basic thematic bookshelf. One such work is Alfred T. Mahanās two-volume Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812, first published in 1905. An officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War, Mahan later joined the faculty of the Naval War College where he combined his professional experiences with close studies of historical records to examine the theme of sea powerās importance in history from the 17th century to his own time. His 1812 text was one of his works that proved to be influential in naval circles in Britain, France, the United States, and Japan in his day and afterwards. For modern readers, Sea Power is a well-written, accessible, but sophisticated study that not only rewards them as a narrative of one of the more important aspects of the War of 1812, but as an adventure into the historiographical mind of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The first in a charming, joyful crime series set in 1920s Bangalore, featuring sari-wearing detective Kaveri and her husband Ramu.
When clever, headstrong Kaveri moves to Bangalore to marry handsome young doctor Ramu, she's resigned herself to a quiet life. Butā¦
There are an enormous range of themes associated with the War of 1812, from the warās social contexts to Black history, to the Treaty of Ghent that ended the conflict, to the warās place in history and memory, and many other topics. In a five-book essential list, they canāt be covered adequately, but readers may turn to essay collections to examine a good number of these concerns. This volume is the best of such collections, with most of its essays having been written by leading experts in the field. It also captures a good sense of the understanding of the war at the time of its bicentennial years of 2012-15 when historical interest was particularly strong and when scholars re-evaluated many of our commonly held assumptions. Now, ten years on, these essays have held up well. One word of warning, however: the chronology looks authoritative but isnāt. Some of the dates are wrong and its compilerās aggressive American patriotism undermined his scholarly obligations to his readers, as exemplified by listing American naval victories but leaving out equivalent British successes and by flag-waving warped descriptions of events.
The War of 1812 ranged over a remarkably large territory, as the fledgling United States battled Great Britain at sea and on land across what is now the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada. Native people and the Spanish were also involved in the war's interrelated conflicts. Often overlooked, the War of 1812 has been the subject of an explosion of new research over the past twenty-five years. The Routledge Handbook of the War of 1812 brings together the insights of this research through an array of fresh essays by leading scholars in the field, offering an overview ofā¦
The book presents the story of John Norton, an important war chief and diplomatic figure among the Grand River Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) who lived north of Lake Erie in the British colony of Upper Canada (now part of Ontario). Their community comprised people from the famous Six Nations: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras, along with others who lived with them, such as Delawares. Norton saw more action during the conflict than almost anyone else, being present at the fall of Detroit; the capture of Fort Niagara; the blockades of Forts George and Erie; and a large number of skirmishes and front-line patrols. His memoir describes the fighting, the stresses suffered by Indigenous peoples, and the complex relationships between the Haudenosaunee and both their British allies and other First Nations communities.
Blood of the White Bear
by
Marcia Calhoun Forecki,
Virologist Dr. Rachel Bisette sees visions of a Kachina and remembers the plane crash that killed her parents and the Dine medicine woman who saved her life. Rachel is investigating a new and lethal hantavirus spreading through the Four Corners, and believes the Kachina is calling her to join theā¦
A wild land too mountainous to be tamed by plows. A duke of the empire, his cunning overshadowed only by his ambitions. A young priestess of the Old Religion, together with a charismatic outlaw, sparking a rebellion from deep within the forests.ā¦