Imagine an America where police and military officers are appointed solely on the basis of their political allegiances. Imagine an America so politically polarized that opponents are labeled as advocating for an “infidel philosophy” (206). Now, imagine an America that reacts to the invasion of its territory by a foreign power with indifference. Hard to imagine? Well, readers of Joshua M. Smith's fifth book, Making Maine, may be surprised to learn this is precisely what Mainers endured in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. This remarkable episode has been overlooked because it runs counter to the western trajectory of the nation and the “insistence on American success” as the theme of nineteenth-century U.S. history (237).
Making Maine takes a chronological approach spanning from the Jefferson Administration through Maine's first years as a state in the 1820s. Although the book has several themes, it defies a clear narrative...