How Civil Wars Start

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A leading political scientist sounds the alarm on the increasing likelihood of a second civil war in the United States—and shows how to stop it before it’s too late.“Required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)WINNER OF THE GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE AWARD • THE SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, The Times (UK), Esquire, Prospect (UK)A civil war today won’t look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind. In this urgent and insightful book, Barbara F. Walter redefines civil war for a new age, providing the framework we need to confront the danger we now face.Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Ir