{"id":8512,"date":"2024-09-23T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=8512"},"modified":"2024-09-16T18:24:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T22:24:14","slug":"the-demon-of-unrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/the-demon-of-unrest\/","title":{"rendered":"THE DEMON OF UNREST"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cA Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War\u201d is the subtitle of Erik Larson\u2019s latest book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4e3SYnz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Demon of Unrest.<\/a>\u201d Larson is one of my favorite non-fiction authors, and the impeccable research that went into \u201cThe Devil in the White City,\u201d \u201cDead Wake,\u201d \u201cIsaac\u2019s Storm\u201d and the rest of his <em>oeuvre <\/em>so eminently enjoyable and informative is clearly apparent in this newest work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All most of us learned in history class about Fort Sumter was that it was the flashpoint of the War Between the States. Larson goes into deep and fascinating details as to the socio-economic dynamics that led to the War, and focuses on the minutiae of what went on in the run-up to the attack, with perspectives from both sides. The attack itself is discussed in precise, almost minute-by-minute detail. And the writing is almost poetic. For example: \u201cTo the onlookers on Charleston\u2019s Battery, the scene had a strange beauty: black smoke, white pillows of cloud, dazzling blue sea and sky, and over the water an indigo shadow cast by pulsing orbs of smoke backlit by the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The battle itself was full of sound and fury, but amazingly light on bloodshed, Larson determined. That no one had been killed in the bombardment itself was remarkable given that the Confederate batteries had fired 3,341shells and balls, and Fort Sumter about a thousand.\u201d There were only a few minor injuries on each side until the sole fatality of the conflict. The Union forces were allowed to fire a face-saving hundred round salute from their cannons, but on the 48<sup>th<\/sup> round one cannon blew up, killing the gunner. The surrender itself turns out to have been quite formal and gentlemanly.&nbsp; That would not be true of most of the conflict that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Great history, great research, great read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cA Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War\u201d is the subtitle of Erik Larson\u2019s latest book, \u201cThe Demon of Unrest.\u201d Larson is one of my favorite non-fiction authors, and the impeccable research that went into \u201cThe Devil in the White City,\u201d \u201cDead Wake,\u201d \u201cIsaac\u2019s Storm\u201d and the rest of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8514,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8512\/revisions\/8514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}