Fergus M. Bordewich is the author of several books, among them America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in history. His articles have appeared in many magazines and newspapers. He lives in San Francisco. Visit him at FergusBordewich.com.
[A] vivid, insightful history of the bitter controversy that led to
the Compromise of 1850 . . . Political history is often a hard
slog, but not in Bordewich's gripping, vigorous acount featuring a
large cast of unforgettable characters with fierce beliefs.
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A lively, attractive book about a fearsome and almost intractable
crisis: the tangle of issues involving expansion and slavery that
confronted the political class of the United States in 1850. . . .
Bordewich, the author of several books on American history, is a
good writer--he knows when to savor details, and when to move
things along.
--Richard Brookhiser, The New York Times Book Review
A perceptive and tremendously witty book about the compromise that
held the US together in the decade before the Civil War.
--Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor
Original in concept, stylish in execution, America's Great Debate,
by Fergus Bordewich, provides everything history readers want. . .
.[the] characters seem as vivid, human and understandable as those
who walk the halls of Congress today.
--Donald E. Graham, The Washington Post
Today's political differences pale in significance when compared
with those that confronted Congress in the mid-19th century. What
was at stake--as Fergus Bordewich reminds us in his stimulating,
richly informed America's Great Debate--was nothing less than the
survival of the nation.
--David S. Reynolds, The Wall Street Journal
"A peerless narrative of one of the most momentous--and
ambiguous--episodes in American history: the compromise that both
saved the Union and, ultimately, destroyed it."
--Adam Goodheart, author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening
"Anyone whose eyes have glazed over at the numbing details of the
Compromise of 1850 should read this compelling narrative of that
famous event. Focusing on the colorful personalities who fought out
the issue of slavery on the floor of the Senate in 1850, Fergus
Bordewich shows how they forged a settlement that avoided war but
laid the groundwork for the Civil War that came a decade
later."
--James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil
War Era
"In this exhaustively researched and brilliantly constructed work,
Fergus Bordewich offers a spellbinding account of a nation
teetering on disintegration, as its lawmakers, gripped by
suspicion, anger, and hatred, ultimately mustered a grudging
agreement--an act of 'collaborative statecraft'--to sacrifice
parochial interests for national survival. In Bordewich's skillful
telling, Congress at its inherent worst, in response to the
volcanic stresses of that era, for the moment, became Congress at
its potential best."
--Richard A. Baker, U.S. Senate Historian Emeritus
"Long before the crisis of 1860 there was the crisis of 1850. With
page-turning narrative skill, Fergus Bordewich re-imagines this
threat to the Union not only in terms of Northerners and
Southerners, slavery advocates and freedom champions, but as a rite
of passage between the old lions of the Senate and Young America--a
transformation that would at least postpone secession and civil
war. Few writers have ever brought this neglected moment to life
more vividly."
--Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln: President-Elect
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