CIVIL WAR OF 1812, THE

　　In this deeply researched and clearly written book, thePulitzer Prize–winning historian Alan Taylor tells the rivetingstory of a war that redefined North America. During the earlynineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggleover the legacy of the American Revolution. Soldiers, immigrants,settlers, and Indians fought in a northern borderland to determinethe fate of a continent. Would revolutionary republicanism sweepthe British from Canada? Or would the British empire contain,divide, and ruin the shaky American republic?　　In a world of double identities, slippery allegiances, and porousboundaries, the leaders of the republic and of the empire struggledto control their own diverse peoples. The border dividedAmericans—former Loyalists and Patriots—who fought on both sides inthe new war, as did native peoples defending their homelands.Serving in both armies, Irish immigrants battled one another,reaping charges of rebellion and treason. And dissident Americansflirted with secession while aiding the British as smugglers andspies.　　During the war, both sides struggled to sustain armies in anorthern land of immense forests, vast lakes, and stark seasonalswings in the weather. In that environment, many soldiers panickedas they fought their own vivid imaginations, which cast Indians asbloodthirsty savages. After fighting each other to a standstill,the Americans and the British concluded that they could safelyshare the continent along a border that favored the United Statesat the expense of Canadians and Indians. Both sides then celebratedvictory by forgetting their losses and by betraying the nativepeoples.　　A vivid narrative of an often brutal (and sometimes comic) warthat reveals much about the tangled origins of the United Statesand Canada.