The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent, by Madison Papers editor-in-chief J. C. A. Stagg, became available for purchase on 24 April 2012 from Cambridge University Press.
"This book is a narrative history of the many dimensions of the War of 1812—social, diplomatic, military, and political—which places the war's origins and conduct in transatlantic perspective. The events of 1812-1815 were shaped by the larger crisis of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. In synthesizing and reinterpreting scholarship on the war, Professor J. C. A. Stagg focuses on the war as a continental event, highlighting its centrality to Canadian nationalism and state development. The book introduces the war to students and general readers, concluding that it resulted in many ways from an emerging nation-state trying to contend with the effects of rival European nationalisms, both in Europe itself and in the Atlantic world." (Cambridge University Press copy)
Named a Cambridge Book Club selection, The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent will be discussed on Facebook, Twitter, and by Dr. Stagg in book readings and signings through June 2012 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of this pivotal event in American history.