The War of 1812 was one of a cluster of events that left unsettled what is often referred to as the Revolutionary settlement. At once postcolonial and neoimperial, the America of 1812 was still in need of definition. As the imminence of war intensified the political, economic, and social tensions endemic to the new nation, Americans of all kinds fought for country on the battleground of culture. The War of 1812 increased interest in the American democratic project and elicited calls for national unity, yet the essays collected in this volume suggest that the United States did not emerge from war in 1815 having resolved the Revolution's fundamental challenges or achieved a stable national identity. The cultural rifts of the early republican period remained vast and unbridged.
Contributors:
Brian Connolly, University of South Florida
Anna Mae Duane, University of Connecticut
Duncan Faherty, Queens College, CUNY
James M. Greene, Pittsburg State University
Matthew Rainbow Hale, Goucher College
Jonathan Hancock, Hendrix College
Tim Lanzendoerfer, University of Mainz
Karen Marrero, Wayne State University
Nathaniel Millett, St. Louis University
Christen Mucher, Smith College
Dawn Peterson, Emory University
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, University of Michigan
David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Eric Wertheimer, Arizona State University