With the flash and thunder of eighteen pounders firing repeatedly, the Royal Navy came to rule the waves in the opening years of the nineteenth century. Yet just as Britain left its European neighbours too frightened to leave their shores, across the Atlantic a fledgling naval force was putting to sea. Ian Toll recounts how the nascent United States came to challenge British supremacy in the short-lived but often vicious war of 1812-15. Though they were inexperienced, outnumbered and outgunned, just six American frigates took on the might of His Majesty's navy - and Toll brilliantly describes, in hair-raising detail, some of the most thrilling actions ever fought.