ebooks Faces of Community: Immigrant Massachusetts 1860-2000 by From Brand: Massachusetts Historical Society in History

Description

This monumental work; the second of two Library of America volumes; culminated Henry Adams’s lifelong fascination with the American past. Writing at the height of his powers; Adams understood the true subject as the consolidation of the American nation and character; and his treatment has never been surpassed.Covering the eight years spanning the presidency of James Madison; this volume chronicles “Mr. Madison’s War”—the most bungled war in American history. The President and Congress delay while the United States is bullied and insulted by both England and France; then they plunge the country into the War of 1812 without providing the troops; monies; or fleets to wage it. The incompetence of the commanders leads to a series of disasters—including the burning of the White House and Capitol while Madison and his cabinet; fleeing from an invading army; watch from the nearby hills of Maryland and Virginia.The war has its heroes; too: William Henry Harrison at Tippecanoe and Andrew Jackson at New Orleans; Commodores Perry and Decatur and the officers and crew of the Constitution. As Adams tells it; though; disgrace; is averted by other means: the ineptitude of the British; the skill of the American artillerymen and privateers; and the diplomatic brilliance of Albert Gallatin and John Quincy Adams; who negotiated the peace treaty at Ghent. The history; full of reversals and paradoxes; ends with the largest irony of all: the United States; the apparent loser of the war; emerges as a great new world power destined to eclipse its European rivals.