Review of "Demon of Unrest"

[Rob Wick]

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War (New York: Crown Publishing, 2024) 592 pp.


I made the mistake of reading Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City before reading any of his other books. I say mistake because Devil in the White City is, hands down, the best book I have ever read. Anything that has come from Larson since has paled in comparison to me. Larson’s book In The Garden of Beasts was an excellent work, but it never came anywhere near the success as a narrative as Devil did. The same holds true for Demon of Unrest.

For anyone who has studied the Civil War, even cursorily, the story of Fort Sumter is well-trodden ground. The characters are well-known, and the events are common knowledge. That is not who this book is geared toward. For want of a better term, this is “Dad History” or a book for someone who holds an interest in history but doesn’t study it beyond the cursory.

Anyone unfamiliar with Erik Larson could do worse in finding a popular historian whose work is crammed with references and heavily researched but also well-written. It’s often said that Larson writes history like it’s a novel, which is a sad statement that we expect history to be written in a turgid, uninspiring style that does more to turn people off of it rather than inviting them to study more. But there is no doubt that Larson could write the phone book and make it appealing.

I listened to Demon of Unrest on audio instead of reading the book because I find I have more time to listen than to sit and read a hardcover. Anyone unfamiliar with Fort Sumter would be lost almost immediately, given the number of characters that Larson introduces, some of which are tangential at best. James Henry Hammond, former Governor of South Carolina and a United States Senator credited with the “Cotton is King” saying, comes into the story seemingly only to titillate the reader who finds out that Hammond raped four of his underage nieces. An interesting, if disgusting, story, but hardly related to the beginning of the Civil War.

Somewhat better fitted for the story is the introduction of Southern diarist Mary Chesnut, although Ken Burns’ heavy usage of her diary (the second version superbly edited by the late C. Vann Woodward), makes much of her appearance also seem superfluous. Larson is on much firmer ground in introducing Abner Doubleday, who serves under the very well-known commander of Sumter, Robert Anderson. Larson uses Doubleday’s memoir to fill in details about life in the threatened fort.

Another issue with Larson’s book is that he jumps around far too often from detail to detail, which, again, would be confusing to a historical novice, especially in an audio format. Larson’s style undoubtedly provides a dramatic narrative, which likely is his main goal, but it does little to introduce the reader to all those people whose actions helped launch the most brutal war America has ever experienced.

Larson does an admirable job in discussing Abraham Lincoln and the related characters of his administration as the country marches toward what seemed to be an inevitable conflict. Again, those who earnestly study this period already knows the arrogance of William Seward, who believed he would have to save the Union given his firm belief that Lincoln was incapable of doing so, but Larson gives the amateur a deeply interesting introduction to the early internecine warfare in Lincoln’s burgeoning cabinet. William Howard Russell, a correspondent for the London Times, also provides a needed voice for world opinion as European foes sit back laughingly as American democracy seemingly implodes.

This obviously only applies to the audio version, but I couldn’t get into the voice of Will Patton. Many people like his rendition, but to me, it seemed too breathy and disconcerting. I think that’s part of the reason it took me so long to finish this. Also, as I stated in an earlier post, the censorship of racial epithets, while possibly pleasing to a different generation, is heavy-handed and falsely performative to this Boomer. To be sure, the use of racial epithets for their own purpose is disgusting and unacceptable. To censor them from a historical document is, at best, problematic. At worst, it is insufferable censorship.

Given the audience that this book is meant to attract, overall, it deserves the kudos it has received. I can’t disagree, however, with one reviewer who said Larson or his editor could have cut 150 pages from the manuscript and ended up with a far better book. I can imagine there will be a lot of fathers, uncles, and brothers, not to mention a few mothers, aunts, and daughters, who will get Larson’s latest work for Christmas, and I imagine they will enjoy it. However, I would recommend that they don’t start with Devil in the White City as an introduction to Larson; otherwise, they will likely be disappointed in his remaining catalog.

Best
Rob