Thank you, Scribner, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished A Hell Of A Storm: The Battle For Kansas, The End Of Compromise, And The Coming Of The Civil War, by David S. Brown.

At first, it appeared that this book was about the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which the author called “almost certainly the most lethal piece of legislation to ever clear Congress.” The act, whose passage was led by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, allowed slave holders to bring their slaves into the vast area between the Mississippi and the Colorado mountains, which had previously been closed to slavery by the Missouri Compromise. Brown’s view of the act is shared by such prominent historians as James M. McPherson (“the Kansas-Nebraska Act…may have been the most important single event pushing the nation towards civil war”) and Allen C. Guelzo (“The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 enjoys the dubious honor of being the only…legislation that caused a civil war.”)

The book started off strong. But, then once the act was passed, the focus of the book abruptly changed. I had been assuming that the author was going to devote the rest of the book to the consequences of the act in leading up to the Civil War. But, the author seemed to be much more interested in focusing just on the events of the year 1854. There was, of course, discussions of things that happened in other years, but it felt like those were more just for background info, for the prior to 1854 stuff, or just foreshadowing, for the yet to occur items. And there was much of the background pre-1854 stuff and not even even close to enough of the subsequent consequences of the act. I’m not complaining about the background, but am complaining about the lack of going forward to the consequences.

This took what could have a very good book and turned into a big disappointment. In the early stages of reading, I gave this one a chance at an A. By the time I was finished, I had to lower the overall grade to C. It was just a lost opportunity to turn what could have been a great book about the consequences of the act into just a look at the events, and important people, of one particular year. Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book originally finished reading this on August 7, 2024.