
The Demon of Unrest
A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
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Narrated by:
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Will Patton
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Erik Larson
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By:
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Erik Larson
About this listen
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).
“A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal
A PARADE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever 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.
Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.
©2024 Crown (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Larson, one of today’s pre-eminent nonfiction storytellers, trawls a variety of archives to explore the historically momentous months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the Battle of Fort Sumter.”—The New York Times
“Perhaps no other historian has ever rendered the struggle for Sumter in such authoritative detail as Larson does here. . . . Few historians, too, have done a better job of untangling the web of intrigues and counter-intrigues that helped provoke the eventual attack and surrender.”—The Washington Post
“A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . Larson’s great gift is his uncanny ability to spin a chronological story whose ending we already know—secession, rebellion, victory, emancipation and assassination—yet keep the narrative as crisp and suspenseful as an Anthony Horowitz suspense novel. . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal
Editorial Review
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Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
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The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
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A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
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No One Goes Alone
- A Novel
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt, Erik Larson
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From New York Times best-selling author Erik Larson comes his first venture into fiction, an otherworldly tale of intrigue and the impossible that marshals his trademark approach to nonfiction to create something new: a ghost story thoroughly grounded in history. Pioneering psychologist William James leads an expedition to a remote isle in search of answers after a family inexplicably vanishes. Was the cause rooted in the physical world...or were there forces more paranormal and sinister at work?
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Not a ghost story in my opinion.
- By Renee on 09-29-21
By: Erik Larson
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Lethal Passage
- The Story of a Gun
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture - its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists - but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
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great reasoned book
- By Claire on 04-26-20
By: Erik Larson
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The Wager
- A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, David Grann
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.
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Gasping for Air
- By Jean Engle on 04-19-23
By: David Grann
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The Wide Wide Sea
- Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration.
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Detailed story of third voyage
- By Sammi on 04-18-24
By: Hampton Sides
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Hotel Angeline
- A Novel in 36 Voices
- By: Erik Larson, Jamie Ford, Deb Caletti, and others
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page. Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence.
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Too Many Writers!
- By Lisa on 08-25-13
By: Erik Larson, and others
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The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
- Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
- By: Douglas Brunt
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
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Just a girl and an audio book.
- By Lori Rhodes on 09-26-23
By: Douglas Brunt
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Left for Dead
- Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters tells the story of a wild encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig, and a British warship in the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812. Fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust, the incident left three British sailors and two Americans including the captain of the sealer, Charles H. Barnard abandoned in the Falklands for eighteen months.
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Great history
- By Pullman on 07-31-24
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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Henry V
- The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry V reigned over England for only nine years and four months and died at the age of just thirty-five, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond. The victor of Agincourt, he is remembered as the acme of kingship, a model to be closely imitated by his successors. William Shakespeare deployed Henry V as a study in youthful folly redirected to sober statesmanship. For one modern medievalist, Henry was, quite simply, “the greatest man who ever ruled England.”
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Amazing Book & Fantastic Storyteller
- By L. Reilly on 11-26-24
By: Dan Jones
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Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
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An outstanding story, highly recommended
- By S. Blakely on 06-22-17
By: David Grann
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The White Darkness
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Worsley spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape and life-threatening physical exhaustion. He soon felt compelled to go back. In 2015, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone.
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Will Patton's narration
- By Carol on 01-18-19
By: David Grann
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The Spy and the Traitor
- The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6.
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John Lee is GREAT!
- By David on 09-21-18
By: Ben Macintyre
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Mary Churchill’s War
- The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest Daughter
- By: Mary Churchill, Emma Soames - editor, Erik Larson - introduction
- Narrated by: Beth Eyre, Emma Soames
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1939, seventeen-year-old Mary found herself in an extraordinary position at an extraordinary time: it was the outbreak of World War II and her father, Winston Churchill, had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; within months he would become prime minister. The young Mary Churchill was uniquely placed to observe this remarkable historical moment, and her diaries—most never published until now—provide an immediate view of the great events of the war, as well as intimate moments with her father. These diaries also capture what it was like to be a young woman during wartime.
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Love Mary Soames
- By Robert on 11-21-22
By: Mary Churchill, and others
What listeners say about The Demon of Unrest
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- WLC
- 05-01-24
Vividly Told History of the Start of the Civil War
This history is a brilliant interweaving of events, contrasting values, economic and political forces and personalities that provide a vivid picture of South Carolina, the South and North, and Washington D.C. at the time of the attack on Fort Sumter to start the American Civil War.
The threatened status of the planter aristocracy in South Carolina, The Chivalry and their view that slavery was a divine institution absolutely critical to the economy and society of the South provide forces driving state secessionists and their absolute loathing of abolitionists dominating the Republican Party. The newly elected President, Abraham Lincoln, was perceived as the embodiment of future imagined abolitionist oppression.
Letters, diaries, speeches, journalist accounts and newspaper reports are sources for an exciting view of the complex people who were driving events including Robert Anderson, James Hammond, Edmund Ruffin, James Buchanan, Mary Chestnut, Abraham Lincoln and William Seward.
Will Patton delivers a masterful narration of the story and voices the colorful characters who drove history.
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12 people found this helpful
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- marc edge
- 05-04-24
Larson at his best!!!
Larson is one of my favorite authors. I have read just about all of his books. Dead Wake. Isaac’s Storm. In the Garden of Beasts. Etc etc. I will say this is in his top three best books. He takes an incredible story and brings it to life. It puts you in Charleston on the eve of the Civil War with incredible people who made the history.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 05-06-24
fort sumter
fort sumter expertly told thru fresh new sources. Well done,incredible listen. truley an excellent story
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6 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-07-24
A ton of research by notable author
While listening to this book, one could tell this was meticulously researched and citations are sprinkled all throughout the book. The story was good but I think I would’ve preferred to read this rather than listen. I’ve listened to other books with the same narrator and enjoyed them but it was my least favorite aspect. I wish he’d just read the whole thing in his own voice rather than trying to do women and French accents which just fell flat for me. My husband also listened to it and really liked the narration, so perhaps it’s just me. Having said that, it doesn’t dampen my enjoyment of Erik Larson books and I’ll anxiously await the next one.
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3 people found this helpful
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- J R Plummer
- 05-27-24
I learned so much! Excellent performance!
I presume like many, I know about battles and key figures. This book focuses on the preamble, which was much more complex in failures of leadership than I had thought.
Many key people I’d never heard of. Excerpts from diaries and letters take the listener back to understand what they were actually thinking.
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2 people found this helpful
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- David Green
- 05-26-24
Great true story & narration.
As always, Erik Larson delivers new insights and flavorful details, blending personal stories to bring world-changing events to life. The narration by Will Patton is just fantastic. He speaks as if he's a character on the scene, imbuing the story with the flavor of the era.
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2 people found this helpful
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- gwolff
- 06-09-24
Fascinating insight into the beginning of the Civil War
Liked: the fact that it taught a period of history in a an informative way. Gave new insight into how the confederates convinced themselves that their position was justified. Illuminated a period of history I was unfamiliar with.
Disliked: takes a little to get into the narrative, a little confusing as far as who the players are in the beginning
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-05-24
Fantastic
I’ll read or listen to every single Erik Larsen book he puts out. This one was especially interesting and I listened to it in under a week. What an interesting perspective he finds and tells the tale of. Thank you sir.
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1 person found this helpful
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- marc mccluskey
- 07-10-24
Overview of the Steps to Ignition
Great account of the rapid reaction build up to what was inevitable, unfortunate but ultimately necessary for the country.
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- Kristina S
- 07-22-24
Clarifying the Start of the Civil War
Not a big Civil War history buff, I am a fan of Erik Larson and his amazing true history books. This one gave me insight into the minds, motives and personalities of people of the time, especially those of the Confederate leaders who called for secession and wanted to keep their slaves. We are often told that the Civil War was not about slavery, perhaps to deflect the reasoning and blame, but indeed, according to this book, it was.
Sadly, the war was just one step in the long journey of protecting all humans and their rights, because we know that racism against African-Americans is still present. The book makes me appreciate the heroes who understood that all humans are equal.
I also was able to draw some parallels between our present sense and sensibilities (or lack thereof by many) with regard to the upcoming election, and how a nation is so unfoundedly divided when seeing the logic of good conquering evil. As the book points out, the secessionists were very prideful and staunch on chivalry, yet they treated human beings like a subclass while all the while raping, using and abusing them for their own benefit.
Thank you, Mr. Larson, for educating me once again. And Will Patton is the perfect narrator for this lengthy chronicle.
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