Pierre Berton, "Invasion of Canada, 1812-1813" (1980)

I have always been a bit leery of reading Pierre Berton's Canadian histories. There's just something about them that smacks of pedestrian, Reader's Digest, "sacrifice the truth for a good story" writing. I have to admit, however, that having read two in the last year (this is the third), that they are really good night-time reading. This one, like Vimy (the last Berton book I reviewed), keeps the narrative moving along, and yet makes a complex topic like the War of 1812 completely understandable. Even more, and I think this is particularly important when talking about a war two-hundred years past, he manages to capture a real sense of immediacy, humanity, and contemporaneity in his descriptions of the soldiers, generals, reservists, and aboriginals. I was really pleased to see that in this book, unlike many of his others, that he actually cites sources, an invaluable gesture to historians who would follow in his footsteps, or inspired by his narrative, desire to seek out the primary information that he based his story on. Of the total six Berton books I have read in my life, I think this ranks as the best so far.