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
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
- “Trump’s Attempt to Whitewash the Jan. 6 Capitol Attack HE Orchestrated & Ordered WILL FAIL!” Justice Matters with Glenn Kirschner, interview
- “The Inside Scoop—January 6, CNN, & How Stories Shape Our World,” The Matriarchy, podcast interview
- “24 Hours at the Capitol . . . ,” The Contrarian, Q&A
- “Five Ways To Remember January 6th,” Doomsday Scenario, Substack mention of new release
- “Nonfiction Views: Books on Jan. 6th, plus the week’s notable new nonfiction,” Daily Kos, included in reading roundup
- “24 Hours at the Capitol: Nora Neus on January 6, the Far Right and American Nationalism,” KCL War Studies, podcast interview
- “Nora Neus and Timothy J. Heaphy,” Weekday Night Live at P&T, podcast of author launch event
- “Do We Really Know How Isabel Archer Felt?” The Atlantic, included in Books Briefing “out soon”
- “Nora Neus on CNN January 6, 2026 discussing 24 Hours at the Capitol,” CNN, interview
- “When the press amplified false claims about Iraq, it failed its highest duty — and fueled a war,” Poynter, author piece
- “The untold stories of Jan 6th; Author Nora Neus on her book 24 Hours at the Capitol,” Can We Please Talk?, interview