Book review: the field of blood: violence in Congress and the road to the civil war by Joanne Freeman

In The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War, Joanne Freeman examines the increase of violence in the US Congress experienced from the 1830s to 1861 in the build-up to the US Civil War, a period that witnessed the rise of the mass political party and growing opposition to slavery and the power of the Southern planters in national affairs. This is a well-researched, pacey and enlightening account of how the American polity developed and fragmented within the close quarters of its central institution, writes Ben Margulies. The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War. Joanne Freeman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2018.