In the
Boston Globe, Michael Kenney takes note of a new book,
The Civil War of 1812 by Alan Taylor, that sees the War of 1812 as a kind of civil war. Kenney emphasizes something he thinks will surprise American readers. It was a land war, much of it fought in and over Southern Ontario:
Americans, whether refugee Loyalists or newly-minted republicans, were in the majority on both sides of the border. But their ideological division “within a cultural and demographic overlap made for a dangerously unstable compound’’ and led inexorably to civil war.
