The greatest miscalculation in American history

David Brown explores how the Kansas-Nebraska Act led to the sudden division of North and South.

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 today’s polarization. By illuminating the personalities and the platforms, the writings and ideas that upended an older America and made space for its successor, this book reminds us that American history is always being made, and it can be dynamic and dangerous.

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“A lively, incisive examination of the social and political background of a tumultuous era.” —Kirkus

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