Midnight Rising John Bron and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War [Paperback]

ANew York TimesNotable Book for 2011
ALibrary JournalTop Ten Best Books of 2011
ABoston GlobeBest Nonfiction Book of 2011

Late on the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown launched a surprise raid on the slaveholding South. Leading a biracial band of militant idealists, he seized the massive armory at Harpers Ferry, freed and armed slaves, and vowed to liberate every bondsman in America.

Brown's daring strike sparked a savage street fight and a counterattack by U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee. The bloodshed and court drama that followed also shocked a divided nation and propelled it toward civil war. Tony Horwitz'sMidnight Risingbrings Brown and his uprising vividly to life and charts America's descent into explosive conflict. The result is a taut and indispensable history of a man and a time that still resonate in our own.

Tony Horwitzis the bestselling author ofMidnight Rising,A Voyage Long and Strange,Blue Latitudes,Confederates in the Attic, andBaghdad Without a Map. He is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has worked forThe Wall Street JournalandThe New Yorker. He lives in Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their two sons.

A hard-driving narrative of one of America's most troubling figures& Horwitz describes the disaster in riveting terms& It's impossible to read this fine book without thinking about modern-day Browns. Kevin Boyle, The New York Times Book Review (a New York Times Notable Book, 2011)

Horwitz's skills are a good match for this enormously compelling character, and his well-paced narrative incorporates masterful sketches of Brown's family, foot soldiers, financial backers, admirers and prosecutors& The result is both page-turning and heartbreaking--a book to engage mind and soul. The Boston Globe

Horwitz, an exceptionally skilled and acl£‡