A.J. Langguth - Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence

Praise for Union 1812

We are in Langguths debt for this vivid retelling of the story of a war that still has everything to do with who we are and how we got this way. Langguth... paints human portraits with skill and grace. Union 1812 is a Plutarchan undertaking, with the larger story of politics and war told through the lives of presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Jackson, the Madisons, and lesser-known figures such as Zebulon Pike. The book has a lovely narrative pace.... Reading Langguth, one is reminded anew of how relevant and resonant the past can be.

Jon Meacham, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Popular history at its most accessible, full of colorful anecdotes and pithy quotes.... Langguth practically brings the War of 1812 to life again, a literary accomplishment that would have made the old Yale diplomatic historian Samuel Flagg Bemis proud.... Besides being a good read, Union 1812 allows you to discover the second wave of our founders with a renewed sense of awe and surprise.

Douglas Brinkley, Washington Post Book World

Union 1812 offers to give readers... all they want to know about Americas second major war.... Langguth shows that victory in battle depended, time and again, on the personalities of the human leaders.... Langguth capably juggles multiple fronts, diplomatic maneuvers, social observations, and the eyewitness testimony, fragmentary but vivid, of lesser figures.

Richard Brookhiser, The New York Times Book Review

This is the fascinating saga of a war that tested the nations ability to set aside political differences and survive its inevitable second confrontation with a better-prepared foe eager to avenge earlier defeat. Langguth provides rich historical detail and unforgettable insights into the event and those who assumed leadership during this pivotal period in American history.

Larry Cox, Tucson Citizen

In Union 1812 , Langguth makes the case that Mr. Madisons War was a second war of independence, one that rescued 18 states and forged them into a nation. He makes history come alive with his accounts of the people and events that made that happen.

Pat McCoid, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington)

A. J. Langguth has done a fine service... with Union 1812 , a sweeping narrative history of key personalities and the events that led to the war.... An excellent work and a fascinating read.

Kim Crawford, The Flint Journal (Michigan)

Langguth superbly conveys the growing pains of the United States as it came of age. Characters from our grade-school history books come alive under his pen.

Richard J. Ring, The Providence Journal

This is a book that is not just for those who love history but for those who love a good story with great characters.... Each and every person that Langguth writes about is written as if he knows each of them personally, warts and all.... Langguth, with the skill of a fiction writer, sets the scene.

Connie Martinson, Beverly Hills Courier

A fast-paced account of the War of 1812.... Langguths prose is vivid, and he brings to life a panoply of personalities, from Dolley Madison to Tecumseh.... A panoramic view of a decisive event in American military and political history.

Publishers Weekly

Expertly guides readers through American history from the countrys unsteady years as a sovereign nation to the culminating victories of the War of 1812. In vivid and richly detailed prose that can read like fiction but is based in well-researched fact, Langguth portrays a host of Federalist politicos and young Americas many struggles.... As he did in Patriots , Langguth here relies heavily on letters, personal journal entries, speech transcripts, and other primary sources that are uniformly fascinating and enlightening. While in no way revisionist, this is well-done history and a worthy addition to any academic librarys American history collection.

Library Journal

An engaging survey of interesting times.... Langguth does a nice job of introducing to modern readers characters who had influence in their time but are mostly forgotten today.... Nicely complicates our understanding of many iconic figures.

Kirkus Reviews

Never again after this masterly work will 1812 be a forgotten war. Langguth brilliantly restores the war to its rightful place in American history while at the same time giving us a rousing good story that holds our attention from beginning to end.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals

A. J. Langguth is incapable of writing a dull sentence. Here he brings rousingly to life the perilous, fascinating years between Americas first and second wars of independence. With an artists flair, a scholars rigor, and the narrative genius of a born storyteller, he gives us presidents and their wives, Redcoats and frontier Caesars, heroes and scalawagsan unforgettable portrait gallery of young America.

Richard Norton Smith, author of Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation

A. J. Langguths Union 1812 is an excellent companion volumeand handy sequelto his fine Patriots , which entertained and enlightened readers with its cast of characters from the Revolutionary War. Anyone now looking for an equally engaging and reliable guide to the principal figures and events surrounding the War of 1812 need look no further. This is it.

Benson Bobrick, author of Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution

Union 1812 both fills a gaping hole in our early history and inventively and persuasively anchors the War of 1812 to the founding process, giving us portraits not only of players like Madison, Tecumseh, Jackson, and Harrison, but also of the revolutionary heroes Jefferson, Adams, and Washington, whose contributions take on new meaning in light of this second war of independence and the true opening of the American West.

William Hogeland, author of The Whiskey Rebellion

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For Alice E. Mayhew

W hen their rejoicing died away, the creators of the United States of America faced the hard fact that winning a war had been easier than governing their new country.

The crusade against Great Britain had united poor and rich, abolitionists and slave owners, clergy and godless. And yet the Articles of Confederation, their first experiment at unity, had barely seen them through to the peace treaty of 1783. With their common enemy gone, the states were proving to be fatally suspicious and envious of one another. But to take their place among the worlds great powers, Americans needed to turn their infant republic into a mature nation.

Four presidents spent the next three decades pursuing the goal of an enduring union. Along with their ambitious vision and hard-fought compromises, success would mean uprooting the continents native tribes and maintaining a willful blindness to slavery.