"Good "entire war" 1812 books?" Topic

While the "definitive" book on land operations appears to have been George F. Stanley's "The War of 1812 Land Operations", I'm wondering if at the bicentennial in 2012 other worthy historical works were made?

If you have some recommendations, please post them!

While I'm presently interested in land operations, I also game Age of Sail, and welcome suggestions for that aspect of the war also.

Thanks!

Pierre Berton – War of 1812.

Try Theodore Roosevelt's Naval War of 1812. You may have heard of him.
link

Quimby, Robert S. U.S. ARMY IN THE WAR OF 1812 An Operational and Command Study, a detailed lookat the US Army & its Leaders, extensive research,chapter notes, appendix, biblio, index. 2 vol, 985 pgs 1998 LANSING, MICHIGAN STATE This is my go to OOB etc. Expensive but worth every penny.

Jon Latimer, 1812: War with America, Harvard University Press, 2007. Balanced and very well written.

J. Mackay Hitsman, The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History, Robin Brass Studio, updated By Donald Graves in 1999. Well written with maps.

Robert Malcomson, The A to Z of the War of 1812, The Scarecrow Press, 2009. Very useful.

George C. Daughan, 1812: The navy's War, Basic Books, 2011.

I have more but these will get you started.

"The Challenge" by Andrew Lambert

link

For a wargame perspective, "Bad Roads and Poor Rations" by Adrian Mandzy would be a good choice. The book includes both land and waterborne scenarios…59 of them. Amazon has it for about $37. USD

@ John the OFM
Yeah, he was president during WWII, right?

One thing I should have mentioned was maps.
I'm continuously stunned at how crappy the maps are in books in the $20 USD-40 range… like they let their 5yo do a pencil sketch.

Then you get over the top awesome maps like West Point Atlas of the ACW, and such. I realize that's not the purpose of every book, but I'm just looking for a happy medium!

Rant over…

The civil war of 1812 by Alan Taylor

1812: the war that forged a nation by Walter R Borneman

The war of 1812 by Donald R Hickey

Lords of the Lake: the war on Lake Ontario by
Robert Malcolmson

Six frigates: the epic history of the founding of the US Navy by Ian W Toll.

There are plenty more if you want.

I'd second "Six Frigates", recommended even for those with no interest in the war – it is a brilliant read!

My library has the Osprey – any opinions on it as an "overview".
Sometimes they have good maps, also.

The War of 1812 (Essential Histories)
by Carl Benn

Recently Strategy & Tactics devoted one of their Quarterly issues to The War of 1812 – was a good overview with lots of maps.

This series by Richard Feltoe is excellent.
link

Further, as a non-read alternative – there is the PBS documentary series on the War of 1812 from I think around 1999. It is available on You Tube. Lots of scenes with reenactors as I recall. There is also some episodes from the TV series Canada: A Peoples History that address The War of 1812 – of course that version is from the winning side LOL.

Have you had a look through these? They are free! Excellent piece of work by Prince of Essling.

TMP link

Although it's a 100 years old, I think this book by Wood is very readable.

PDF link

I remember diving into the War of 1812 for a project, and the amount of detail was overwhelming. I needed extra help with assignments and found out here that saved my research efforts, you can find out here which took a lot off my plate. For anyone exploring books on this topic, "The Incredible War of 1812" by J. Mackay Hitsman is excellent, especially for its maps. Seeing troop movements visually really helped me understand the battle strategies and made the whole topic more engaging!

I would also suggest four books by Donald E. Graves which are very well written.

Field of Glory (Chrysler's Farm, 1813)
Red Coats and Grey Jackets (Chippawa)
Where Right and Glory Lead! (Lundy's Lane)
And All Their Glory Past (Fort Erie, Plattsburgh, and the Final Battles in the North, 1814)

Willaim James: "A full and correct account of the chief naval occurrences of the late war between Great Britain and the United States of America : preceded by a cursory examination of the American accounts of their naval actions fought previous to that period." (London: T. Egerton, 1817); (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2002)

With regard to J. Mackey Hitsman's work (published in 1965), there is an updated edition published in cooperation with his estate in 1999. Donald E. Graves is credited for the update. The update is mostly bibliographic and quite extensive.