Will I love The Impending Crisis?

David M. Potter’s The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (1976; winner of a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for History) remains, after nearly half-a-century, the best narrative on the coming of the Civil War. It brims with perceptive analysis and very usefully instructs readers about history’s vexing complications. Completed after Potter’s death by his colleague at Stanford Don E. Fehrenbacher, the engaging text forcefully reminds readers to keep in mind the contingent nature of politics and to avoid assuming events had to play out as they did. Part of the period’s complexity lay in the fact that although the crisis of 1860-1861 had… show more.

This book is deservedly considered a classic. It is beautifully written and features penetrating analysis grounded in impressive research. Potter takes you into the minds of the politicians and policy-makers whose conflicts and struggles led to the Civil War and reveals how they thought about the issues and each other.