{"product_id":"book-c4a6","title":"Madness Rules the Hour","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom Lincoln's election to secession from the Union, this compelling history explains how South Carolina was swept into a cultural crisis at the heart of the Civil War.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"The tea has been thrown overboard - the revolution of 1860 has been initiated.\" - Charleston Mercury, November 8, 1860\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1860, Charleston, South Carolina, embodied the combustible spirit of the South. No city was more fervently attached to slavery, and no city was seen by the North as a greater threat to the bonds barely holding together the Union. And so, with Abraham Lincoln's election looming, Charleston's leaders faced a climactic decision: they could submit to abolition - or they could drive South Carolina out of the Union and hope that the rest of the South would follow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eMadness Rules the Hour,\u003c\/i\u003e Paul Starobin tells the story of how Charleston succumbed to a fever for war and charts the contagion's relentless progress and bizarre turns. In doing so, he examines the wily propagandists, the ambitious politicians, the gentlemen merchants and their wives and daughters, the compliant pastors, and the white workingmen who waged a violent and exuberant revolution in the name of slavery and Southern independence. They devoured the \u003ci\u003eMercury\u003c\/i\u003e, the incendiary newspaper run by a fanatical father and son; made holy the deceased John C. Calhoun; and adopted \"Le Marseillaise\" as a rebellious anthem. \u003ci\u003eMadness Rules the Hour\u003c\/i\u003e is a portrait of a culture in crisis and an insightful investigation into the folly that fractured the Union and started the Civil War.","brand":"Hachette Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49349428674864,"sku":"BDc4a6","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/c4a6-Square-cover.jpg?v=1778125870","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-c4a6","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}