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On April 27, 1813, a force of 1,800 American soldiers landed on the beaches west of the small Canadian town of York. After driving off the British troops sent piecemeal against them, the Americans captured the provincial capital of Upper Canada, which they occupied for nearly a week before withdrawing. Though viewed by the Americans as a modest success of their arms, as Robert Malcolmson shows in this first-rate account of the incident, the battle and the occupation came to assume great significance for the inhabitants of what would become the modern metropolis of Toronto, as well as Canadians throughout the region.

To that end, Malcolmson begins by describing the origins of the battle in the war being waged. For contemporary Americans the War of 1812 was supposed to provide them the opportunity to annex Canada to their union, yet their initial efforts ended ignominiously in failure. In response, the U.S. flooded the region with men and materiel seeking to reverse British gains. One tempting target was the town of York on Lake Ontario, which many believed was being expanded into a naval base for British forces. The British, however, changed their minds not long before the Americans launched their assault, believing the town to be exposed and indefensible form enemy attack. In this respect the American attack on York only served to validate that judgment, leaving the Americans’ victory a limited one but not without consequences for the town’s residents.

Malcolmson recounts all of this in a book rich with detail about the context and events of the battle. Ultimately he singles out the British commander of the region, Sir Roger Sheaffe, for failing to provide the leadership his men needed, though Sheaffe’s superior, Sir George Prevost, receives his share of blame for the disaster as well. Though Malcolmson’s narrative seems on the verge of drowning the reader in details at times, for the most part his writing style engages the reader with a nice mixture of information colored by anecdote. It is a book unlikely to be bettered as a study of the battle of York, and should be the first source to which anyone interested in learning about its or its legacy should turn.