Erik Larson with Clint Smith

On the occasion of the paperback release of The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson—the #1  New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile as well as The Devil in the White City—speaks about his chronicle of the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War. 

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. 

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson offers a gripping account of the period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals—forces that led America to the brink and killed 750,000 Americans. 

Larson will be in conversation with Clint Smith, a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, How the Word Is Passed, and the poetry collections, Counting Descent and Above Ground.