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