Through the Perilous Fight with Steve Vogel

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Celebrate the launch of the one of the most recent books on the War of 1812, Through the Perilous Fight, with author Steve Vogel of the Washington Post!

Through the Perilous Fight tells the gripping, little-known story of a pivotal six weeks in U.S. history when our place in the world was changed forever—the story of the perilous fight that preserved the new nation at a time of grave danger, severed remaining ties with America's colonial past, and inspired the country's most indelible song: The Star-Spangled Banner.

Summer, 1814: the United States is on the brink of defeat in an ill-advised war it declared on Britain two years earlier. The ruthless British Admiral George Cockburn launches a bold invasion to capture Washington and the British burn the White House and Capitol in an attempt to crush the American spirit. Instead, against all odds, America rallies to repulse the British at Baltimore less than three weeks later and in doing so, change the course of the War of 1812.

With two compelling lead characters – Admiral Cockburn and American lawyer Francis Scott Key – and a breakneck narrative that includes brilliantly rendered cameos from James Madison and many others, Through the Perilous Fight is thrilling, superbly researched, and fast-paced. Filled with maps, political cartoons, portraits and paintings Through the Perilous Fight brings history into vivid relief, from James Madison's flight to the scars the White House still bears. This story is one that still resonates today; The War of 1812 was a war of choice that divided Americans, not unlike the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and the burning of Washington was a national tragedy that united the country.