Abstract

The subtitle of Donald Hickey’s 1987 The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict rings true for the general public, though not for scholars who produced more than 2,000 volumes about the war prior to the publication of Hickey’s book and more than 200 since. ¹ Nineteenth-century writers usually depicted the conflict as the Second American War for Independence which added economic independence to the political autonomy won in 1776–1783. ²