A House Divided: Watching America’s Descent into Civil Conflict, a new digital book by award-winning author and York political science Professor James Laxer, analyzes the descent of the United States into civil conflict.
At a time when American society is roiled by deep divisions over immigration, guns, the role of the state, and the 
economic crisis, Laxer makes the case that serious conflict is likely to be generated from the right of the American political spectrum, from the forces he refers to as “Old America”.
In the book, Laxer asks the provocative question: “Is the United States once again ‘A House Divided’,” to use Lincoln’s famous phrase on the eve of the American Civil War. He argues that Old America is increasingly desperate in the face of the demographic and societal changes that are transforming the country.
He goes on to show how old elites, the French aristocracy on the eve of the Revolution, and the Southern Slaveocracy who started the Civil War, can 
provoke desperate conflicts to salvage their positions. Could this happen in America today?
James Laxer
Laxer is the author of more than 14 books, including Tecumseh and Brock: The War of 1812 (House of Anansi Press, 2012) and The Acadians: In Search of a Homeland (Doubleday Canada, 2007). His book, Stalking the Elephant: My Discovery of America (Viking Canada, 2000), was on national bestseller lists for seven weeks.
He wrote A House Divided while in California in the winter of 2013 where he was also writing Travels Through the Golden State: A California Diary, both are Anansi Digital Publications.