Download high-resolution image

24 Hours at the Capitol

An Oral History of the January 6th Insurrection

Author Nora Neus

Hardcover

$28.95 US

| $38.95 CAN

Beacon Press

On sale Dec 30, 2025 | 240 Pages | 9780807020623

Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies

See Additional Formats

Nonfiction > History > U.S. History > 21st Century U.S. History
Nonfiction > Politics

View on Edelweiss

The 24 Hours in Charlottesville author offers a minute-by-minute account of the January 6 riots through never-before-heard stories of those who were there

Neus goes beyond mainstream reporting to reveal important truths about the US white nationalist movement

This bracing account reconstructs what it was actually like in and around the Capitol during those 24 hours.

Lawmakers recount donning gas masks and being evacuated to safe rooms.
Police officers recall insurrectionists screaming at them and calling them traitors.
Staffers remember “walking over pools of blood” as they ran for their lives.
A young Asian-American staffer recalls locking herself in a room just feet from the rioters, mentally preparing to be raped.
A mostly Black janitorial staff began cleaning the blood of insurrectionists off the marble floor on the Capitol before the building was even officially secured.

Neus’s sources include original interviews, court documents, firsthand accounts, the US Capitol Historical Society’s oral history project on the insurrection, and the work of Tim Heaphy, chief investigator of the congressional January 6 Select Committee.

January 6 was largely planned right out in the open, but lawmakers and government officials underestimated the threat in part because it was coming from white people. Neus examines the underlying racial implications of not only the attack itself, but also in the planning and coordination of the response.

“An especially important document.”
—Booklist, Starred Review

“A shocking window into a day that history must never forget. It is filled with stunning details that are new to even those who covered it that day. Nora Neus masterfully weaves dozens of perspectives into one riveting account that makes what transpired even more seismic than we knew.”
—John Berman, CNN anchor

“In 24 Hours at the Capitol, Nora Neus has brought to life a propulsive and compelling narrative while providing a vital historical record to combat the forces of misinformation seeking to obscure what really happened on January 6th.”
—Ian Rosenberg, media lawyer and author of The Fight for Free Speech: Ten Cases That Define Our First Amendment Freedoms

“Neus is becoming one of America’s foremost oral historians, and this book is a must-read for anyone struggling to understand political violence in this country.”
—Tim Heaphy, chief investigator for the US Congress January 6 Select Committee

“Nora Neus has crafted a fascinating window into one of the most consequential days of modern American politics. Her deep research delivers a seat-of-your-pants, pulse-racing read, journeying minute by minute through a day that changed America forever.”
—Garrett Graff, author of The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb

Nora Neus is an Emmy-nominated producer, speaker, and author who covers race, policing in America, and white nationalism. She has produced over 3,400 hours of live television at CNN and covers major national and international news for outlets including the Washington Post, POLITICO, VICE News, Teen Vogue, and The Guardian. Neus also runs the Longform Lab, a 6-week intensive course for journalists.

Nora Neus View titles by Nora Neus

Introduction
Cast of Characters

PART 1: “A YEAR IN THE MAKING”

CHAPTER 1
“It’s time for fucking war if they steal this shit”

CHAPTER 2
“Will be wild”

CHAPTER 3
“One million patriots”

PART 2: THE INSURRECTION

CHAPTER 4
“That’s exactly how Charlottesville began”

CHAPTER 5
“Things started to get really violent”

CHAPTER 6
“Hand-to-hand battle”

CHAPTER 7
“Then all of a sudden we were inside”

CHAPTER 8
“If they stop the proceedings, they will have succeeded in stopping the validation of the President of the United States”

CHAPTER 9
“You can see the line of loss. The territory is theirs”

CHAPTER 10
“They just killed a girl”

CHAPTER 11
“Kill him with his own gun”

CHAPTER 12
“It just was another level into Dante’s Inferno”

CHAPTER 13
“The mob kept attacking even while we tended to their wounded”

CHAPTER 14
“You started to see the police officers make progress”

PART 3: “IT’S GOING TO REQUIRE A NATIONAL RECKONING”

CHAPTER 15
“Do I fear another one of these happening? Absolutely”

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

About

Lawmakers recount donning gas masks and being evacuated to safe rooms.
Police officers recall insurrectionists screaming at them and calling them traitors.
Staffers remember “walking over pools of blood” as they ran for their lives.
A young Asian-American staffer recalls locking herself in a room just feet from the rioters, mentally preparing to be raped.
A mostly Black janitorial staff began cleaning the blood of insurrectionists off the marble floor on the Capitol before the building was even officially secured.