In Unshackling America (St. Martin’s Press) Willard Sterne Randall *84 makes a case against the common narrative that the United States’ fought two separate wars against the British: The American Revolution and the War of 1812. Rather, Randall asserts that these wars, separated by 50 years, were really the same battle and that the U.S. did not achieve full economic independence until the conclusion of the War of 1812. In this historical analysis, Randall also charts how the U.S. came to dominate the seas to become a major player in world trade.
