The Demon of Unrest

Lincoln’s election triggers secession and the Battle of Fort Sumter, but this is the rest of the story.

The Demon of Unrest is another captivating story of narrative non-fiction from Erik Larson about a paragraph in your high school history book. The five months between Lincoln’s election and inauguration was a time of fear, threats, bombast, misinformation and miscommunication.  Larson weaves history, biography, political strategy, regional ideology and military custom into a thrilling tale, even if we know how it ends.