Product Description

In the newest volume of this exhilarating series, Eric Flint continues to reshape American history, imagining how a continent and its people might have taken a different path to its future. With 1824: The Arkansas War, he spins an astounding and provocative saga of heroism, battlefield action, racial conflict, and rebellion as a nation recovering from war is plunged into a dangerous era of secession.

Buffered by Spanish possessions to the south and by free states and two rivers to the north, Arkansas has become a country of its own: a hybrid confederation of former slaves, Native American Cherokee and Creek clans, and white abolitionists–including one charismatic warrior who has gone from American hero to bête noire. Irish-born Patrick Driscol is building a fortune and a powerful army in the Arkansas Confederacy, inflaming pro-slavers in Washington and terrifying moderates as well. Caught in the middle is President James Monroe, the gentlemanly Virginian entering his final year in office with a demagogic House Speaker, Henry Clay, nipping at his heels and fanning the fires of war. But Driscol, whose black artillerymen smashed both the Louisiana militia in 1820 and the British in New Orleans, remains a magnet for revolution. And fault lines are erupting throughout the young republic–so that every state, every elected official, and every citizen will soon be forced to choose a side.

For a country whose lifeblood is infected with the slave trade, the war of 1824 will be a bloody crisis of conscience, politics, economics, and military maneuvering that will draw in players from as far away as England. For such men as Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Sam Houston, charismatic war hero Andrew Jackson, and the violent abolitionist John Brown, it is a time to change history itself.

Filled with fascinating insights into some of America’s most intriguing historical figures, 1824: The Arkansas War confirms Eric Flint as a true master of alternate history, a novelist who brings to bear exhaustive research, remarkable intuition, and a great storyteller’s natural gifts to chronicle the making of our nation as it might have been.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #891089 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-28
• Released on: 2006-11-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In Flint's skillful, provocative sequel to his alternative history, 1812: The Rivers of War (2005), the "Confederacy of the Arkansas" is thriving on the alliance of its Native American and African-American citizens. The independent nation puzzles Northerners but affronts slavery-bound Southerners, who are determined to put these inferior races in their place. Having finagled his way into the White House, a cynical, self-assured Henry Clay launches an invasion of the upstart country, while brawling frontiersman Andrew Jackson and New England intellectual John Quincy Adams become unlikely allies in a new political party based on individual rights. Flint deftly juggles historical details and asks important questions: if America had confronted its institutionalized racism earlier, could our Civil War have been prevented? And can enlightening firsthand experience overcome prejudice? (Nov. 28)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* The sequel to 1812: The Rivers of War (2005) is Flint's finest and may become his most controversial book. Ten years after 1812's events, the Cherokees and Patrick Driscoll in Arkansas are attracting a steady stream of African Americans, both fugitive slaves and freedmen, fleeing a deteriorating racial climate. When a filibustering expedition runs into the well-drilled Arkansas army and its Indian allies, it gets a bloody nose. To cement the southern bloc that won him the presidency in the House of Representatives, Henry Clay launches a formal invasion of Arkansas. But rivals Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams form a new party to oppose the war and improve the condition of freedmen, while Arkansas, with the aid of superbly drawn historical figures, such as Sam Houston, and equally compelling fictional ones, such as teenaged African American captain Sheffield Parker, holds its own. Add tragedy in the murder of Houston's wife and comedy in Parker's gentlemanly crush on the daughter of a Kentucky senator and his mulatto common-law wife, and it is hard to think of a more powerful alternate-history novel since Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South (1992). If Flint skates along the thin edge of plausibility, he credibly depicts a U.S. in which, given something like the war of 1824, nationalism might indeed have triumphed over sectionalist defense of slavery. A winner from start to finish. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Praise for Eric Flint’s 1812: The Rivers of War

“Flint’s witty, tightly written alternative history presents a subtly revised version of events in the final year of the War of 1812. . . . Fans will cheer even louder if this outstanding start turns out to be the first of a long saga.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Eric Flint drops his readers into another time and place, where cultures collide, the action is hot and heavy, and we get to experience the best of the human spirit.”
–David Weber, author of the Honor Harrington adventures

“[Flint is] a helluva storyteller. . . . He’s dished up an excellent historical novel here–entertaining, informative, fast-moving.”
–SF Site

“Eric Flint has a genius for taking his passion for history and turning it into powerful, action-packed stories that instantly grab the readers and plunge them into a time and place that might have been.”
–David Drake, author of The Far Side of the Stars and Redliners

“A rousing tale . . . thought-provoking and gloriously action-packed.”
–SFReviews.net

“A meticulously researched alternate history, a tantalizing glimpse of the free America we have lost, and a thrilling story of warfare in the Napoleonic era.”
–Gene Wolfe, author of The Book of the New Sun


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

One of the best Alternate History novels ever written.
Eric Flint covers a period of time that is very often ignored by others in the field of alternate history. His first book in this series, 1814: The Rivers of War and now this one, 1824: The Arkansas War is a period that has often been forgotten with there being a greater emphasis on the American Revolution, the Civil War and World Wars One and Two. It is a rich period with some of the most fascinating characters from the pages of our American History Books and Eric Flint has done his research. This series surpasses his excellent 1632 plus novels and he has proven himself a true master in this genre.

Unlikely as the idea may seem to some, there is a second republic in North America thanks to the efforts of Sam Houston and Patrick Driscol as described in the first book. Arkansas is a confederacy made up of pioneers like Houston, Native American tribes and African Americans. The latter group makes up the majority and includes both freedmen and escaped slaves. The big issue is slavery and how a slave free republic with black leaders would influence the United States. It is ultimately what leads to war.

While the author spends ample time on ordinary citizens it is the leading figures of the day that will attract the reader and how the author uses excellent insights to explore the character of each. Especially strong are the portrayals of John Quincy Adams, John Brown, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Clay, William Henry Harrison, Sam Houston, Andrew Jackson, James Monroe, Winfield Scott and Zackary Taylor. The political interaction among these great names is as fascinating as the reader would desire and makes the military campaigns described almost an after thought. Don't worry, there is plenty of miliary action and strategy if that is your cup of tea. There is also attention paid to social issues outside of slavery with religion being given fair coverage.

The l632 series established Eric Flint as the new master of alternate world history and this series will solidify it for generations to come. It makes me wish I was still teaching history full time as these books would be required reading.

Makes one wonder about this mostly overlooked period...
Flint blew apart most of my vague assumptions about this period that generally gets a hurried treatment on most histories that focus on wartimes. The characters are richly drawn and fit what I've read of the actual ones while brought to life as funny, passionate, puzzled, and struggling folks. The storylines are reasonable, but surprising, so racing to see how they unfold is a severe temptation with a book that deserves to be savored. There's a lot here, even more than I found in rereading the first book "Rivers of War" and it shows you what could have been just as Houston's defense of the capitol and other choices did. It's a superb book full of fun, struggle, surprises, reluctant heroes and few villains (other than John C. Calhoun of S.Carolina who comes off badly so many times in 19th Century history he's one of the great "wreckers", precipitating the Civil War probably more than any one other person...Calhoun's a natural pivot point for any alternative history and Henry Clay's ambiguities with great skill make an even better one. Well worth the hardcover price (always a pain for fiction) and as the other reviewers comment, this might be Flint's best book yet and he's consistently very,very good.

This sequel isn't as good, but isn't bad. (3.5 stars)
Set about 10 years after the events portrayed in Flint's book, 1812, this alternative history picks up with Nation of Arkansas, a nation that has been carved out of the Arkansas and Oklahoma territories and offers a new life for freed slaves and many Native American tribes being pushed out of the Eastern United States. It has a large, well-trained army, which, when Arkansas Post is attacked, defends it well. This event kicks off turmoil in the US as the newspapers and politicians rant about the `aggressive blacks' across the river and how they must be taught a lesson. Will there be a war? Will the US eradicate the young nation?

Notes:
This book does not stand alone. You need to read 1812 first.

Sam Houston, the focus of the first book doesn't play as large of a role in this one. There was not as much character development in this story.

There is more exposition in this book and less action.

In the first book, 1812, Flint spends some time presenting the plight of the Native Americans in the face of a relentless push by the United States to claim the entire continent. The social emphasis of this sequel, however, is the plight of the African slaves, their lack of human rights, property and respect as fellow humans. I found it to be a good reminder of the horrors of slavery and the status of Africans (I'm not sure one can call them African-AMERICANS at that time, since they weren't granted citizenship or any other rights. They were slaves without a country ... but I digress.) The author isn't preachy, he weaves the information into the story quite well.

All in all, I did not feel that this sequel matched the first volume in pace, plot or character development, but it was worth the time to read it.