How Civil Wars Start

And How to Stop Them

By: Barbara F. Walter

Narrated by: Beth Hicks

Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A leading political scientist examines the dramatic rise in violent extremism around the globe and sounds the alarm on the increasing likelihood of a second civil war in the United States

“Required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

WINNER OF THE GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE AWARD • THE SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, The Times (UK), Esquire, Prospect (UK)

Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country.

Perhaps surprisingly, both autocracies and healthy democracies are largely immune from civil war; it’s the countries in the middle ground that are most vulnerable. And this is where more and more countries, including the United States, are finding themselves today.

Over the last two decades, the number of active civil wars around the world has almost doubled. Walter reveals the warning signs—where wars tend to start, who initiates them, what triggers them—and why some countries tip over into conflict while others remain stable. Drawing on the latest international research and lessons from over twenty countries, Walter identifies the crucial risk factors, from democratic backsliding to factionalization and the politics of resentment. A civil war today won’t look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind.

In this urgent and insightful book, Walter redefines civil war for a new age, providing the framework we need to confront the danger we now face—and the knowledge to stop it before it’s too late.

©2022 Barbara F. Walter (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“[A] bracing manual . . . Walter’s book lays out America’s possible roads to dystopia with impressive concision. Her synthesis of the various barometers of a country heading to civil war is hard to refute when applied to the U.S. . . . Indispensable.”—Financial Times

“I wish all the [January 6] committee members would read [How Civil Wars Start] if only to expand their imaginations. [Barbara F. Walter] demonstrates that the conditions for political violence are already all around us.”—David Brooks, The New York Times

“I’ve been skeptical of the notion that the United States is on the verge of another civil war. Walter has made me reconsider. . . . This is a book that everyone in power should read immediately.”—The Washington Post

Critical reading/listening for the times

This book is crucial and the themes in it are woefully underreported. We are careening toward disaster with fewer and fewer chances to change course and avert crisis every day. Awareness is a start, and a necessary ingredient in solving what feels like an unsolvable problem. This book needs to be your next read/listen. It is so incredibly vital.

Timely Commentary

I appreciated this review of the history of civil war within my lifetime. What occurred in the countries where civil war broke out and in those that skirted it. The polity scores and the concept of anocracy was well defined and eye opening.

Interesting and useful, but hindered by bias

I enjoyed listening to this book and found it useful. However, in the final 2 chapters I found the author got a bit off track and unacknowledged biases became much more prominent. Overall I would recommend this book, but would be frank about some of the biases and assumptions that don't seem to be recognized or acknowledged by the author.

Very Important Reading for Our Time

So worth it if all you give is a listen to the last 10 minutes.

One day they will call our time "The Madness". Professor Walter says we must regain control of Social Media's grip on our psyche and unite again as a people before we succumb to our enemies plans.

Birds Eye rationale view

This historical and current analysis of the factors impacting devolution of democracy and supporting it is a timely read

Well-researched and well-written book.

Listened to this book in one day. Both terrifying and hopeful. Narration was well done.

This was a very good history of civil wars especially in the last hundred years.

The author introduces several ways of measuring political stability and ways of predicting sliding into Civil War and makes a strong argument that the United States is closer to Civil War right now than we have been since the original Civil War in the 1860s. There’s also good advice about how to begin to deal with this before it gets further out of control.

Ignore negative reviews whinging of "left bias"

The reviews complaining about "liberal bias" and whinging over Walter not including the much fewer numbers of leftist terror events in the past few decades when compared to the hundreds and hundreds of right-wing extremist events is such a silly example of some of the very stuff Walter is trying to discuss.
Merely discussing the worrying trends in radicalization among white evangelical Christians who are feeling themselves lose their grip on cultural, economic, and political power causes such moaning displays of grievance and outsized attacks against truth-tellers.
Walter is discussing here in this book two specific markers found in countries that are at high risk for falling into a modern-day civil war (which looks different from previous centuries' civil wars, and certainly looks *very* different when your country's military is large and sophisticated). She's not discussing her own personal research, but collective research done on a large dataset. It's findings are not negotiable just because it makes you feel sad or bad. She gives many, many examples across the globe to back it up, then moves to the U.S. to explain why here these two markers exist now and WE.ARE.IN.TROUBLE.

Anocracy and the increasing homogenization and radicalization of the GOP into a white, radical Christian, nationalist party, are the two risk factors (the ONLY two risk factors) that create the stage for civil war. Here or anywhere else where a country moves from democracy or autocracy into a mixed chaotic system of anocracy, and where groups divide not by ideology, but by racial, ethnic, and/or religious identity, the stage is set for civil war.
This is the thesis of the book, and the years of research Walter was involved in. Ignore the negative reviews by the very folks that are putting the stability and peace of the United States at risk.

Like a Christmas Carol

This book was something like Dickens Christmas Carol. The stories of other civil wars was like the ghosts of Christmas past. The current state of the US is like Christmas present. The terrible future that is predicted can also be averted if the warning signs are heeded. This book was very interesting, informative, and surprisingly hopeful.

I saw this coming a long time ago

Unless it meets certain people's expectations it's going to be called either left or right wing bias. To me I don't interpret it as left wing cuz she doesn't really even talk about any of these things. Plus with some of the subject matter we're dealing with these days you're not given the option of being neutral. it's a pretty elementary book but that's what It is meant to be so if you're looking for something super sophisticated this is not it. What this is though is a warning. It's meant to reach a wide audience. I heard about this lady on the news then I ended up reading her book. she's a smart lady and a lot of people out there just want to hate. You only play yourself if you don't understand how things play out. While observing other countries we've realized there's a pattern so if you want to prevent civil war in the United States it's best to understand the mechanism and the agitators. People got a hard on for war but the working class usually suffers and it really doesn't help.