"Lion in the Bay: The British Invasion of the Chesapeake..." Topic

…1813-1814'

"Many Americans know little more about the War of 1812 than the burlesqued facts that the British chased Dolley Madison from the White House, torched Washington and locked up Francis Scott Key on a ship to witness the bombardment of Fort McHenry and write "The Star-Spangled Banner." The authors of "Lion in the Bay" would have us know more, particularly that the burning of Washington was only the most infamous of many outrages committed by the invaders, who won many battles and lost the war.

Part of the story relates how these outrages galvanized these former colonies when opinion was deeply split over the wisdom of getting into a sea fight with the mightiest navy on the planet. One person responsible for the outrages was Rear Adm. George Cockburn, whom Britain would honor for ferrying Napoleon to exile on St. Helena and, as first sea lord in the 1850s, launching the royal navy's conversion from sail to steam. He himself might have preferred to be remembered for those deeds, because his performance on these shores was atrocious — that is, involving atrocities…"
Full review here
link

Amicalement
Armand

"who won many battles and lost the war."

That was the home team, wasn't it? :)

If the review is any judge of the content of the book the authors would seem to have little grasp of the reality f the Chesapeake campaign, or perhaps a great pile of prejudices to heap on their readers.

Wow the review does no favors for the book! It is full of hyperbole and generalizations with no facts supporting them.

It appears the reviewer does know who won the war and certainly does not know much about the Chesapeake Campaign. I agree with David Manley and wonder if the book is as bad as the review.

I heartily recommend "The Internal Enemy" by Alan Taylor, about slavery and the War of 1812 on the Chesapeake. His work is balanced and well written.

link

I also thought the review was terrible but was intrigued enough to check the book out on Amazon UK.
They have a large chunk of the book to view online and it looks to be a very well written book on the Chesapeake campaign.
It is now on my wish list of books!

Paul

If so then pity it seems that publishers have to present such a poor impression of their books by writing such trashy press releases