... a rigorous yet readable analysis of the prospects for a second American civil war.

Only a fanciful vignette about two-thirds of the way through—envisioning a morning of chaos in November 2028, with bombs going off across the country as California wildfires rage—made me think that Walter was 'fear-mongering,' or at least pandering to our most literal-minded instincts. Then again, if things are as dire as she says, forcing us to see what a collapse might look like may arguably be the responsible thing to do.

The power of Walter’s model is that she does not need to reference the United States. One plots our nation automatically as one reads. (The United States currently has a polity score of +5, within the anocracy zone for the first time since 1800.).

The title of the book is misleading. It isn’t really about civil wars generically, but about one conceivable conflict in particular: the Second American Civil War. Roughly at the halfway point, having established how fratricidal conflict occurs, Walter turns her attention fully to her own country. Naturally, she knows how absurd such a possibility will seem to many readers as they take the subway to their downtown offices or listen to the audiobook as they drive the kids to school.

The central contention is that civil wars are most likely to occur in countries that exist in a 'middle ground' between democracy and autocracy known as 'anocracy'. Here she relies on the widely used Polity Score.

Although Walter is very clear about the clear and present danger posed by a right-wing insurgency, she does not engage in the sectarian scaremongering sometimes indulged by the American left. In her conclusion, she proposes a positive rather than punitive approach.

Walter avoids...polemic and overstatement.

... a solid contribution to the field of conflict studies.

Arresting reading that identifies obstacles and dangers to democracy, many at the highest levels of government..

... stark and deeply informed.