Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit eds. Revolutions Across Borders: Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019.

In conjunction with the McGill-Queen’s University Press, Age of Revolutions is proud to offer a revolutionary raffle of Revolutions Across Borders. Maxime Dagenais reflected on the book earlier this week on the site. Check out his post and enter below for a chance to win a copy of the edited collection !

Enter your name and email address below to enter our raffle. The entry portal and the contest will close at 11:59 pm on Sunday, July 28, 2019. (We won’t use your email for anything other than contacting you if you are the winner.)  

Nicholas Stark is our winner! Congratulations!

About the editors: 

Maxime Dagenais is research coordinator of the Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University.

Julien Mauduit is L.R. Wilson Assistant Professor at McMaster University.

About Revolutions Across Borders: 

“Starting in 1837, rebels in Upper and Lower Canada revolted against British rule in an attempt to reform a colonial government that they believed was unjust. While this uprising is often perceived as a small-scale, localized event, Revolutions across Borders demonstrates that the Canadian Rebellion of 1837-38 was a major continental crisis with dramatic transnational consequences.

In this groundbreaking study, contributors analyze the extent of the Canadian Rebellion beyond British North America and the turbulent Jacksonian period’s influence on rebel leaders and the course of the rebellion. Exploring the rebellion’s social and economic dimensions, its impact on American politics, policy-making, and the philosophy of manifest destiny, and the significant changes south of the border that influenced this Canadian uprising, the essays in this volume show just how malleable borderland relations were. Chapters investigate how Americans frustrated with the young republic considered an “alternative republic” in Canada, the new monetary system that the rebels planned to establish, how the rebellion played a major role in Martin Van Buren’s defeat in the 1840 presidential election, and how America’s changing economic alliances doomed the Canadian Rebellion before it even started.

Reevaluating the implications of this transnational conflict, Revolutions across Borders brings new life and understanding to this turning point in the history of North America.”

Book Blurbs:

“Revolutions across Borders makes a powerful argument that borderlands are not only created by state power and material demands, but are also sources of intellectual change. With its attention to people, subjects, and developments in the United States during the 1830s, this volume will compel historians of the early US to think more carefully about the international dimensions of their field. It successfully captures the dynamism and complexity of the Canadian Rebellion as a transnational event.”

– Eric Schlereth, University of Texas at Dallas

Table of Contents: 

Foreword / vii
Ruth Dunley

Acknowledgments / xvii

INTRODUCTION

The Canadian Rebellion and Jacksonian America: A Connection Decades in the Making / 3
Maxime Dagenais

SECTION ONE Economic Concerns

1 Patriots No More: The Political Economy of Anglo-American Rapprochement, 1815-1846 / 27
Jason M. Opal

2 Bank War in Lower Canada: The Rebellion and the Market Revolution / 58
Robert Richard

SECTION TWO Alternative Republics

3 The Lure of a Canadian Republic: Americans, the Patriot War, and Upper Canada as
Political, Social, and Economic Alternative, 1837-1840 / 91
Thomas Richards Jr

4 Bald Eagle Over Canada: Dr Samuel Underhill and the Patriot Rebellion Of 1837-1838 / 137
Andrew Bonthius

5 “The Road Not Taken”: Duncombe on Republican Currency: Joint Stock Democracy, Civic Republicanism, and Free Banking / 174
Albert Schrauwers

SECTION THREE Continental Impact

6 John L. O’Sullivan’s “Canadian Moment”: The Democratic Review and the Canadian Rebellions / 209
Louis-Georges Harvey

7 Canadian Interference in American Politics: The 1840 Presidential Election / 239
Julien Mauduit

AFTERWORD

“The Practicability of Annexing Canada”: Or, The Manifest Destiny of Canada, According to the United States / 276
Amy S. Greenberg

Contributors / 287
Index / 291

Title image: “Destruction of the American Steam-boat Caroline by the British. who having set her on fire sent her with the killed and wounded down the Falls of Niagara on the night of Friday 29th Decr. 1838 [1837].” Collection of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.