Bestselling Narrative Historians Erik Larson and Nathaniel Philbrick - The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War and The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World

Kentucky Author Forum 30th Anniversary Season

ERIK LARSON is the author of seven national bestsellers, including The Demon of Unrest, The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm. He came to Kentucky Author Forum in 2012 with In the Garden of Beasts. His books have been published in nearly forty countries. Larson's latest title, The Demon of Unrest, is a nonfiction thriller about the five months between Lincoln’s election and the start of the Civil War. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.  Larson is the recipient of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Edgar Allan Poe Award.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK won the National Book Award for In the Heart of the Sea, and the George Washington Book Prize for Valiant Ambition.  Mayflower was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.  His latest, The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World, reveals how California’s Gold Rush forged the modern United States—and lit the long fuse to civil war. Philbrick transforms the Gold Rush from a tale of sudden riches into the origin story of America’s modern contradictions—capital consolidated at dizzying speed, democracy in thrall to private power, xenophobia weaponized in the name of liberty—and a stubborn belief in the American experiment that refuses to die. He follows the gold as it moves from riverbed to countinghouse to the halls of power, revealing how vigilantism hardened into law and how debates over slavery in the West tipped the balance in Washington.

Mary Moss Greenebaum is the founder and producer of Kentucky Author Forum. It is sponsored by the Owsley Brown II Family, LDG Development, University of Louisville, Bittners, Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government, KERTIS, and the James Graham Brown Foundation. Other partners include Carmichael's Bookstore, Courier-Journal, KET, and Kentucky Performing Arts. 

"Louisville's only cultural program distributed nationally" 

Kentucky Author Forums are made available to PBS member stations nationwide, under the title Great Conversations. Videos are available at www.youtube.com/@kentuckyauthorforum5881. Forums are also recorded as podcast episodes, called Great Podversations, which are distributed by Louisville Public Media, and available on iTunes, NPR, Spotify, Stitcher, and most other podcast apps.

University of Louisville students, faculty, and staff can now purchase discounted Kentucky Author Forum tickets by calling (502) 584-7777. Just mention your UofL affiliation when placing your order. Limit two tickets per ID.

Please note that you’ll need to present your UofL ID at Will Call on the evening of the Forum to receive your tickets.

This is a rental event presented by an independent organization separate from Kentucky Performing Arts. KPA is committed to its core values of inclusivity and welcoming, including freedom of artistic expression.