A Hell of a Storm
The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War
Table of Contents
About The Book
The history of the United States includes a series of sectional compromises—the Constitutional Convention, the Missouri Compromise in 1820, and the Compromise of 1850. While these accords created an imperfect republic, or “a house divided,” as Lincoln put it, the country remained united. But then in 1854, this three-generations system suddenly blew up with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and here, David Brown explores in riveting detail how the Act led to the sudden division of North and South.
The Act declared that planters, if permitted by territorial laws, could bring their enslaved peoples to the land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains—the core of Jefferson’s old Louisiana Purchase which had been reserved for free labor. Northerners were shocked that free soil might now be turned over to slavery and responded with unprecedented backlash. In the bill’s wake the conservative Whig Party (winners of multiple presidential elections) collapsed, and the radical Republican Party was born—in six years it would take control of the central government, provoking Southern secession.
In A Hell of a Storm, Brown brings history to life in a way that resonates with the events of present. Through chapters on Lincoln, Emerson, Stowe, Thoreau, and Tubman, along with a cast of presidents, poets, abolitionists, and black emigrationists, Brown weaves a political, cultural, and literary history that chronicles the Republican party’s creation and rise, the collapse of antebellum compromises, and the coming of the Civil War, all topics that mirror current discussions about polarization in our nation today. By illuminating the personalities and the platforms, the writings and ideas that upended an older America and made space for its successor, A Hell of a Storm reminds us that American history is always being made, and it can be both dynamic and dangerous, both then and now.
About The Author
David S. Brown teaches history at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of seven books, among them four biographies: The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson, The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams, Paradise Lost: A Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (September 17, 2024)
- Length: 352 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668022832
Raves and Reviews
"Insightful . . . historian David S. Brown makes a convincing case for the importance of 1854 . . . a compelling story that explains how Americans abandoned compromise and turned to war to resolve their differences." —Wall Street Journal
"Lively . . . A series of vibrantly narrated vignettes demonstrate the Act’s radicalizing effect . . . Readers will be entranced by this sharply drawn study of sectarian feeling.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Engaging . . . intriguing and persuasive . . . Brown’s ultimate conclusions are apt, compelling, and memorably expressed. . . . A lively, incisive examination of the social and political background of a tumultuous era.” —Kirkus
“Noteworthy . . . readers will come away better informed about antebellum history and how it mirrors current events.” —Booklist
"David S. Brown has crafted a fascinating narrative web, one that expertly interweaves the well-known with the little-remembered. The book abounds in compelling portraits of the great and not-so-great. A Hell of a Storm is a hell of a book, insightfully revealing how America's best minds could not avert America's greatest calamity." —John Matteson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Eden's Outcasts and A Worse Place Than Hell
"No one who encounters David Brown's new re-telling of the infamous 'Nebraska Bill' will be in any doubt that it was the most toxic piece of legislation ever to pass a U.S. Congress. With a sharply ironic pen, Brown walks us through the terrible unfolding of the year 1854 and the deadly ways it pointed the nation toward civil war. A tour de force!" —Allen C. Guelzo, Princeton University, author of Gettysburg: The Last Invasion
"David S. Brown plies his historian’s conscience along the ragged seams of American politics and violence, people and events, reminding us that our choices make and unmake our history. His skillful chronicle of the decline of compromise culture is adventuresome, ominous, and, in our convulsive days, necessary." —John Summers, historian and author of Every Fury on Earth
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- Author Photo (jpg): David S. Brown Photograph by Heike Martin(0.1 MB)
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