Read Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812

Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812

Bradford Perkins

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Description:This book is the first full-scale study of the coming of the War of 1812 since the work of Henry Adams. Using materials either overlooked or ignored by other scholars, Mr. Perkins reexamines previous interpretations of the coming of the war. He contends that diplomatic disasters cannot always be explained in rational terms and that emotional factors more often than not dictate the course of history. He shows how the hotheads of the two countries made folly beget folly, until a war that neither side wanted became a reality.Prologue to War begins in 1805, when the Essex case ended a lengthy period in which Britain, even though she was fighting for her life against Napoleon, treated neutral commerce with relative leniency. Britain increased the impressment of seamen from American ships in order to build up her navy, and instituted a heavy blockade of Europe to deprive Napoleon of essential goods and to preserve British dominance of the Continental market.Mr. Perkins traces the effort to settle Anglo-American difficulties through the Monroe-Pinckney treaty of 1806, the Erskine agreement and the order in Council of 1809, and the repeal (too late to prevent the American declaration of war) of the Orders in Council in 1812. The British government, while desiring American neutrality, felt it neither possible nor necessary to pay a high price for it, and the pressure of the Napoleonic wars engendered a hostile attitude in England, which, combined with contempt for American weakness, discouraged substantial concessions to the United States.Mr. Perkins maintains that Jefferson and Madison mishandled the foreign policy of the United States, embarrassing America by making claims neither they nor the country was prepared to back with adequate weapons. As a consequence, a growing feeling of humiliation — of a threat to national honor and self-respect — developed in the United States, and in the end, although most Americans clung to a hope of peace, there was no alternative but war.This work rests upon far broader examination of English sources than has any previous study. The author was the first American diplomatic historian to be admitted to the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle and was the first scholar to use the Spencer Perceval papers since Henry Adams examined half of them some seventy years ago.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812. To get started finding Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
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ISBN: 0520009967

Description: This book is the first full-scale study of the coming of the War of 1812 since the work of Henry Adams. Using materials either overlooked or ignored by other scholars, Mr. Perkins reexamines previous interpretations of the coming of the war. He contends that diplomatic disasters cannot always be explained in rational terms and that emotional factors more often than not dictate the course of history. He shows how the hotheads of the two countries made folly beget folly, until a war that neither side wanted became a reality.Prologue to War begins in 1805, when the Essex case ended a lengthy period in which Britain, even though she was fighting for her life against Napoleon, treated neutral commerce with relative leniency. Britain increased the impressment of seamen from American ships in order to build up her navy, and instituted a heavy blockade of Europe to deprive Napoleon of essential goods and to preserve British dominance of the Continental market.Mr. Perkins traces the effort to settle Anglo-American difficulties through the Monroe-Pinckney treaty of 1806, the Erskine agreement and the order in Council of 1809, and the repeal (too late to prevent the American declaration of war) of the Orders in Council in 1812. The British government, while desiring American neutrality, felt it neither possible nor necessary to pay a high price for it, and the pressure of the Napoleonic wars engendered a hostile attitude in England, which, combined with contempt for American weakness, discouraged substantial concessions to the United States.Mr. Perkins maintains that Jefferson and Madison mishandled the foreign policy of the United States, embarrassing America by making claims neither they nor the country was prepared to back with adequate weapons. As a consequence, a growing feeling of humiliation — of a threat to national honor and self-respect — developed in the United States, and in the end, although most Americans clung to a hope of peace, there was no alternative but war.This work rests upon far broader examination of English sources than has any previous study. The author was the first American diplomatic historian to be admitted to the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle and was the first scholar to use the Spencer Perceval papers since Henry Adams examined half of them some seventy years ago.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812. To get started finding Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812

Prologue to War; England and the United States, 1805-1812

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