Currently reading
400 Years Of Freethought
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson
The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America
Mr. Madison's war: Politics, diplomacy, and warfare in the early American republic, 1783-1830
Stagg admits that the dominant feature of almost all literature” on the War of 1812 “has been its emphasis on the sheer ineptitude of the American war effort.” But even so, “to stress ineptitude as the theme of the War of 1812...is to neglect an important, albeit obvious, point about its history--which is that no administration could have actually intended what happened to have occurred.” The question is, was there a realistic plan behind Madison’s policy, or was he too a source of incompetence?
