The Invasion of Canada

The Invasion of Canada 1812-1813
By Pierre Berton
Published 1980

The Invasion of Canada is Pierre Bertons excellent work on the first year of the War of 1812, a war that forever destroyed the dreams of a Native Confederacy in the Old Northwest, insured that the British North American Colonies would follow a different path then their cousins to the South, and that the United States would continue it's territorial expansion westword and become a force on the world stage. Berton gives some background to the conflict (ie. British trade embargo and harrassment of American shipping, American expansion onto Native lands, as well as the rise of the Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and The Prophet), before detaling the wars first year, marked by the Americans unpreparidness and at the command level incompatence, which resulted in the bloodless sezure of Detroit and much of the Northwest by the British under Major General Sir Isaac Brock. Berton's narritive continues to the Battle of Queenston Heights where another invasion force was repelled and Brock killed, onto one of the darkest most shameful chapters of Canadian military history, the Battle of Frenchtown in 1813 and following massacre of American wounded and prisoners, by Native Warriors ( Berton's narritive is refreshingly even handed as he nether excuses nor condones atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict, he merely reports them). All in all this is an excellent book for anyone seeking to learn more about this half-forgotten war that is immensly importent to Canadian and American history.

**** out of ****

Also reccomended is David Niven's novel 1812 which tells the conflict from an entirly American prospective.