Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Crown Publishing, and Erik Larson for the advanced reader copy of the book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Erik Larson has a unique way of presenting actual events so they read like a story. His attention to detail may be too much information for some people, but I have been enjoying his work. In the introduction to The Demon of Unrest, Larson states that his research for this book about the beginning of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place. At the same time, there are many common denominators for events that led up to our modern event as well as the secessionist fervor that led up to the Civil War.

I took advanced placement American History in high school and also covered it briefly on a course in college. Nothing I studied before gave me the understanding I gained from The Demon of Unrest. Although some of the awareness can be attributed to the many books I’ve read on the subject since then, Larson covers the Southern mentality in such a way that I gained a better understanding of what led to the Civil War. Ever since the country was founded, southern slave owners were coddled with the laws that were passed, including the Constitution. Lincoln’s election in 1860 and the swelling ranks of abolitionists struck fear in the hearts of those who were playing at being American royalty and using enslaved people to prop up the illusion.

I’ve often said that most wars happen because the wealthy convince the poor and middle class to fight for them. This is a case where most of the people in the South really had no reason to secede from the Union. The vast majority owned no slaves. However, they were afraid of the races mixing and that motivated them to fight. Larson details how much fear the slave owners and others lived with that one day the slaves and free blacks would rebel. This fear motivated secession as proponents were traveling to state conventions talking about how the North would force their views on the South and allow miscegenation, among other mixing of the races. Whites in the South still saw blacks as inherently inferior and didn’t want them as equals.

Larson’s research includes diaries by those who were in Charleston at the time and who saw the events leading up to the start of hostilities at Fort Sumter from a different point of view than what I was presented with in my studies. It doesn’t excuse the enslavement of a race of people but gives their perspective. Larson has also read through the papers of various politicians and sets the narrative of an ineffective outgoing President who allowed the rebels more latitude than he should have against the conflicting interests of the incoming President. He follows Lincoln on his journey from Illinois to the White House, all the while under threats of assassination, which may or may not have been real.

The depth in The Demon of Unrest is unparalleled. I could see the resemblance to the events of January 6, 2021. It’s also a cautionary tale of appeasement of those who would commit insurrection against the government and what it leads to. I recommend it to Civil War aficionados as well as anyone interested in a better grasp of history.