Border Crossings Book Signing with Joel Stone

In celebration of the bicentennial of Detroit’s final independence from the British and the new release Border Crossings: The Detroit River Region in the War of 1812, the Detroit Historical Society will be hosting two book signings at our two museums with one of the authors of this partnership project with Wayne State University. 
The signings will occur on Saturday, September 7 from 12 – 2 p.m. at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the American victory in the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813 and Saturday, September 28 from 12 – 2 p.m. at the Detroit Historical Museum, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of when the British left Detroit for the last time on September 29, 1813.

Border Crossings: The Detroit River Region in the War of 1812 is now available for sale at either Museum Store or online at www.detroithistorical.org. This 302-page collection of essays, edited by Denver Brunsman, Joel Stone and Douglas Fisher, explores the changing political allegiances and sweeping human narratives that shaped the Detroit River region during the War of 1812. For more than a generation, American citizens, British subjects, French settlers, Native Americans and African slaves and freed-men routinely crossed the border while living and working together in one of the most diverse regions in North America. That tranquility ended suddenly with the War of 1812.

The result of a year-long community history project by the Detroit Historical Society and Wayne State University, Border Crossings uncovers the personal and group interactions often ignored in standard histories of the War of 1812. As the Detroit River region shifted between American and British control, "border crossings" had profound new implications for its diverse inhabitants, including widespread privation, imprisonment, enemy attacks, and dispossession of homes and land. Ultimately, this ugly conflict produced a surprising outcome: The War of 1812 molded a region, divided between two nations, that today hosts the busiest crossing of the longest peaceful border in the world.

Brunsman is currently an assistant professor of history at The George Washington University and was formerly an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University from 2005-2012. He was awarded the Excellence in Teaching award at Wayne State in 2007 and 2010 and sat on the Wayne State University Press Editorial Board from 2009 to 2012. Stone is senior curator for the Detroit Historical Society. A lifelong Detroit area resident, he received his bachelors degree in history and communications from the University of Detroit and his masters in history from Wayne State. While at WSU, he received research awards for his work in colonial American history and early Detroit history. Fisher is a writer and an authority on regional War of 1812 scholarship.