Publication Date: April 30, 2024
Print Length: 592 pages
Previous Author Publications:
- The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020)
- Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015)
- In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin (2011)
- Thunderstruck (2006)
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that changed America (2002)
- Issac’s Storm: A Man, a Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (1999)
- Lethal Passge (1994)
SYNOPSIS
In his most recent book Demons of Unrest, Erik Larson recounts the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War. As passions flared between the abolitionists in the North and the slave-owners in the South, Major Anderson and his small band of Union soldiers found themselves besieged at Fort Sumter off the coast of South Carolina. Tensions ran high as the United States teetered on the brink of a tragic war that would eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Using diaries, government communiques, slave ledgers and plantation records, Larson brings this period to life contrasting the priorities of Lincoln and his cabinet, with those of the emerging leaders of the Confederacy. He also compares the lives of the soldiers who were defending Sumter with those of the plantation owners who naively believed the Union could be peacefully divided.
REVIEWS AND AUTHOR INFORMATION
Kirkus Reviews, “The Demon of Unrest, A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak And Heroism At The Dawn Of The Civil War by Erik Larson,” April 30, 2024, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/erik-larson/the-demon-of-unrest/
Holzer, Harold, “’The Demon of Unrest’ Review: the Seeds of the Civil War.” The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-demon-of-unrest-review-the-seeds-of-civil-war-0acbbb24.
CBS Sunday Morning, “The Demon of Unrest”” Erik Larson on the first shots of the Civil War.” April 28, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecb3dHoN9WA.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
To recreate the events that led up to the Civil War, Larson accessed official documents, newspaper accounts, letters and private diaries. How effectively was he able to recreate what it was like to live through this critical time in U.S. history?
What does Larson’s narrative reveal about the challenges Lincoln faced as he tried to keep the Union together? Was the Civil War inevitable?
By using first person accounts, Larson’s book reads like a novel. Did he achieve the right balance between historical fact and narrative drama as passions between the North and South flared?
What traces of the legacy from the Civil War persist today?
