Characterized through much of the War by rank amateurism in military matters, the well-trained, massive British army might well have crushed the Americans had the British not been constrained to focus primarily on their long-running war with Napoleon. The Americans were sorely unprepared for the fight ahead- and yet they had contemplated war with France as well. Had the War Hawks gotten their wish, the story of 1812 would have been far different, and likely much more tragic.

Borneman is concerned here with telling the war's story rather than explaining it, and in this aim he succeeds. His descriptions of land & sea battles like that of New Orleans and the fight for control of Lake Erie combine clarity and drama. He also succeeds in bringing the Native American experience of the War into the narrative, helping the reader better understand how these nations- such as Tecumseh's Confederacy- affected the overall strategic picture without relegating them to the sidelines or footnotes, showing them as vital to the earliest experience of the United States, which is perhaps the greatest sign of respect one could give.

He shows both the triumphs and failures of the United States with equal enthusiasm. Some of the best parts are when he describes the principal actors, such as General Henry Dearborn: A hero of the Revolution, he was derisively called "Granny" behind his back by disgruntled troops- and Borneman tells us this in a way that comes as completely understandable to the modern reader. For every coward, there are true heroes. For every blackguard, there are paragons of virtue to be found.

It is the aftermath of the War of 1812 that proves its import to the United States, however. This is the war that gave us our sense of national identity, the one that gave us our National Anthem and founded the political tradition of Jacksonian Democracy, the one that proved motley assemblages of backwoodsmen, ne'er-do-wells, Indians, city dwellers, freed slaves, and pirates could lick a professional army and form a nation. While it isn't covered directly in the book, I suspect the War also contributed to a Canadian sense of national identity as well. All in all, I found this a well-researched, straight-forward kind of history, well worth buying for historical buffs of America in particular and war in general.

Author information:
Walter R. Borneman is the author of six books about American history, most recently, Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land and 1812: The War that Forged a Nation. In his home state of Colorado, he is best-known as the co-author of A Climbing Guide to Colorado's Fourteeners, first published in 1978 and in-print for twenty-five years.