Erik Larson will write about the months leading up to the American Civil War, Crown announced in a news release.
The Random House imprint will publish Larson’s The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War next year. The press describes the book, about the five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the start of the Civil War, as “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.”
Larson is one of the country’s most popular authors of nonfiction history. He is best known for The Devil in the White City, about an architect and a serial killer at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and In the Garden of Beasts, which told the story of William E. Dodd, the U.S. ambassador to Germany during the first years of Nazi rule.
His most recent book, The Splendid and the Vile, which followed one year in the life of Winston Churchill, was published in 2020.
Larson told the Associated Press that he was working on the book when he heard news of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
“I have to tell you, it was the weirdest thing watching this unfold on TV, because the documents I was going through could have been written today,” Larson said. “Lincoln’s primary concern had been about whether the electoral vote count would be disturbed, and then came the grave concern about the inauguration. It all has very contemporary resonance.”
The Demon of Unrest is scheduled for publication on April 30, 2024.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
