Publisher, Macmillan Audio (October 2011)

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"A hard-driving narrative of one of America’s most troubling figures…Horwitz describes the disaster in riveting terms… It’s impossible to read this fine book without thinking about modern-day Browns." —Kevin Boyle, The New York Times Book Review

“Most of the speakers in the story of John Brown are fanatics on one side or another of the slavery questions, and a very large proportion of them are Virginians. Fortunately for us and for narrator Daniel Oreskes, the text makes clear who is speaking, so this skilled reader has not had to invent distinct voices for all of them. He does, however, treat them all with respect.” —AudioFile Magazine

"Superb and amply researched… [Horwitz] renders with empathy and insight the lives of the individuals Brown touched, whether they were family members, victims, or the idealistic raiders who followed him to Harpers Ferry… Brown’s raiders thus appear more human, poignant, and fallible and the whole venture more noble, futile, benighted, heroic, and sadder than heretofore." —American Scholar

"A gripping narrative of Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry that in many ways set the stage for Southern secession and civil war. Horwitz brings all his gifts of character building and storytelling to Brown’s rise and self-promotion… Horwitz’s Brown did not die in vain. By recalling the drama that fired the imagination and fears of Brown’s time, Midnight Rising calls readers to account for complacency about social injustices today. This is a book for our time." —Library Journal (starred)

"Lucid and compelling… The author’s archival sleuthing pays off with a rich narrative." —Kirkus Reviews

"[Horwitz’s] vivid biographical portrait of Brown gives us an American original: a failed businessman and harsh Calvinist with a soft spot for the oppressed and a murderous animus against oppressors… Brown’s raiders—a motley crew of his sons and various idealists, adventurers, freedmen, and fugitive slaves—come alive as a romantic, appealing bunch; their agonizing deaths give Horwitz’s excellent narrative of the raid and shootout a deep pathos." —Publishers Weekly

"There’s a brilliance to this book that put me in mind of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, only Horwitz’s Midnight Rising is set deeper in America’s dark past. With stunning, vivid detail, he has captured the sheer drama and tragedy of John Brown and that bloody raid at Harpers Ferry that helped propel America toward civil war." —Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts

"Tony Horwitz's gifts as a vivid narrator of dramatic events are on full display in this story of John Brown's wars in Kansas and his climactic Harpers Ferry raid in 1859. Brown's family and the men who joined him in these fights against slavery receive a more fully rounded treatment than in any other account. Of special note is the discussion of Brown's self-conscious emulation of Samson by pulling down the temple of bondage and dying a martyr in its ruins." —James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

"Midnight Rising is a deeply compelling work, richly researched and elegantly written. The events surrounding the raid on Harpers Ferry—and the complex character of John Brown himself—come vividly to life in Tony Horwitz’s irresistibly readable account." —Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello

"With his customary blend of rich archival research, on-location color, and lyrical prose, Tony Horwitz has delivered a John Brown book for our time. Part biography, part historical narrative, Midnight Rising is a riveting re-creation of the Harpers Ferry raid, told with an unblinking sense of Brown's tragic place in American history. Writing with enveloping detail and a storyteller's verve, Horwitz shows why Brown was—and still is—so troubling and important to our culture." —David W. Blight, author of American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era

"Tony Horwitz knows how to tell a story, and here his considerable gifts as a writer bring John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry alive in a style that is just as electric as its subject." —Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers and First Family

"Beautifully written and sparkling with fresh insights, Midnight Rising resurrects the multiple faces of John Brown: avenging angel or murderous terrorist; slavery's nemesis or deluded fanatic; abolitionist hero or subversive insurrectionist. In this thrilling, magnificent and essential book, Tony Horwitz shows how one man and a single event set the nation on a doomed course where the crimes of a guilty land could only be purged by blood." —James L. Swanson, author of Manhunt and Bloody Crimes

Bestselling author Tony Horwitz tells the electrifying tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war.

Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising portrays Brown's uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict.

Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a dashing spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale."

Tony Horwitz's riveting book travels antebellum America to deliver both a taut historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation divided—a time that still resonates in ours.

About the Author:Tony Horwitz is the bestselling author of Midnight Rising, A Voyage Long and Strange, Blue Latitudes, Confederates in the Attic, and Baghdad Without a Map. He is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has worked for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. He lives in Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their two sons.