Days of Defiance by Maury Klein is a very interesting and detailed account of the events leading up to the Civil War. It was published by Alfred A. Knopf inc. in New York City in 1997. It is a four hundred and twenty one-page book. The author of this book is Maury Klein. Klein is a professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. He specializes in American history during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This gives him good credentials to write an accurate book on the coming of the Civil War, since the Civil War took place in the nineteenth century. He has written other books on the Civil War as well as on other books on American History during the nineteenth century. Klein therefore has a vast knowledge on the Civil War and on the time period of the Civil War. This allows him to write a very accurate and detailed account of the events that led up to the Civil War. This book deals with the start and causes of the Civil War. It starts with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States in 1860 and ends with the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. The approach of the book is a documentary approach. Klein divides the book into three parts. Part one is entitled The Battle Over Washington, the second part is entitled The Battle Over Secession, and the third part of the book is entitled The Battle Over Fort Sumter. Klein also describes the events in chronological order. He goes through the major events of each month starting with November 1860 and going through April 1861. Overall the book covers six months leading up to the start of the Civil War. The length of the book is four hundred and twenty one pages. it is a very well organized book. It is divided into three parts and twenty-three chapters. For the most part it is told in chronological order, but in some places it goes into the past to discuss events that help the reader understand the current situation. Klein starts o...