Eric Larson is one of my favorite authors, and his books have inspired some of my favorite lecture series -- and his new book, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil, War (available May 1, 2024) ties into my upcoming series The Rise and Fall of the Not-So-Invisible-Empire.
The election of 1860 was particularly fractious, and Abraham Lincoln was elected with only 39.8% of the popular vote, and Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in all the states. On November 9, 1860, just three days after Lincoln's election, the South Carolina General Assembly passed a "Resolution to Call the Election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. President a Hostile Action" and stated its intention to secede from the United States. On December 20 South Carolina followed through on secession, and other Southern states began to follow suit, formally establishing the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861 - a month before Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861. Slavery was central to the conflict, and the proponents of secession unabashedly declared that the preservation of slavery was their motive.
The Demon of Unrest chronicles the five months between Abraham Lincoln's unlikely election on November 6, 1860 and the Confederacy's shelling of Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 12, 1861 that ended Lincoln's hope of holding the Union together and avoiding war.
Hope to see you in The Rise and Fall of the Not-So-Invisible Empire!
Check Out Larson's Books [Links take you to Amazon]
- The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
- In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Berlin
- The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
- The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz
- Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- Thunderstruck
- Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun
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