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  "Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War" by Tony Horwitz will evoke a familiar image for Kansans: the resolute larger-than-life Abolitionist donning the walls of the State Capital in Topeka. Brown, in his mid-fifties, waged a bloody renegade war to end slavery that started in the Border Wars in the Kansas Territory and ended when Brown was captured and sentenced after his famous raid on Harper’s Ferry.  

Relying on his self-proclaimed “archive of the feet,” Tony Horwitz walked Brown's path to Harper’s Ferry at the same time, late evening, and on the same date, October 16, as Brown and his band of men did when they raided Harper’s Ferry. Horwitz then relied on written archives such as diaries, letters, coded messages, court documents and newspaper accounts to write about a sharply divided country and the fiery incidents leading up to the Civil War.

Noting that most historians struggle with the incidents in Kansas, Horwitz was determined to get it right so that the book would be interesting to laypeople and academics alike. With eerie contemporary parallels, Midnight Rising is a gripping narrative confirming that history repeats itself while pondering the question of whether ways justify means. 

Review by Sarah Bagby  

Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War (Hardcover)

By Tony Horwitz

$29.00

ISBN-13: 9780805091533
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Henry Holt and Co., 10/2011

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