C-SPAN to Air Charleston author series event with Paul Starobin
April 17, 2017
Paul Starobin will present and discuss his new book, Madness Rules the Hour, at the Blue Bicycle Books Charleston Author Series on Friday, April 24 at High Cotton Restaurant in downtown Charleston. The historically significant book and event will be filmed and aired by C-SPAN.
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In Madness Rules the Hour, Starobin tells the story of how Charleston succumbed to a fever for war and charts the contagion’s relentless progress and bizarre turns. In doing so, he examines the wily propagandists, the ambitious politicians, the gentlemen merchants and their wives and daughters, the compliant pastors, and the white workingmen who waged a violent and exuberant revolution in the name of slavery and Southern independence.
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In 1860, Charleston, South Carolina, embodied the combustible spirit of the South. No city was more fervently attached to slavery, and no city was seen by the North as a greater threat to the bonds barely holding together the Union. And so, with Abraham Lincoln’s election looming, Charleston’s leaders faced a climactic decision: they could submit to abolition–or they could drive South Carolina out of the Union and hope that the rest of the South would follow.
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Starobin has reported from Russia, India, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Europe and South America. Previous positions include reporter for Congressional Quarterly in Washington, business reporter for The Lowell Sun in Massachusetts, and public-policy case writer for the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
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He grew up in Worcester, Mass. and graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. Starobin received a Masters of Science degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was an international journalism fellow for the Knight Foundation journalism program.
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High Cotton restaurant is located at 199 East Bay Street. Journalists may interview and photograph Mr. Starobin from 11:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. on the day of the event, and receive a promotion code for discounted luncheon tickets. Call 843-303-1113 to reserve.
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