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5 of 12 copies available
“Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize • Longlisted for the Biographers International Plutarch Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews
A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.
At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right.
This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination in 1865: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln’s story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 18, 2022 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593632888
- File size: 513277 KB
- Duration: 17:49:19
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from August 29, 2022
Pulitzer winner Meacham (His Truth Is Marching On) more than justifies yet another Lincoln biography in this nuanced and captivating look at the president’s “struggle to do right as he defined it within the political universe he and his country inhabited.” Drawing sharp parallels to Lincoln’s battles against “an implacable minority gave no quarter in a clash over power, race, identity, money, and faith” and today’s “moment of polarization, passionate disagreement, and differing understandings of reality,” Meacham highlights Lincoln’s struggles to live up to a “transcendental moral order” that called on humans “to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God.” For Meacham, Lincoln is above all “an example of how even the most imperfect of people, leading the most imperfect of peoples,” can bend the arc of the universe toward justice. Light is shed on Lincoln’s failures, including his 1849 effort to abolish slavery in Washington, D.C., which would have required municipal officers to arrest and return to their owners any enslaved people who escaped into the district, as well as his “theological quest” to understand the “concepts of God and Providence” as he grappled with the issue of slavery and the tragic death of his son, Willie, in the White House. Richly detailed and gracefully written, this is an essential reminder that “progress can be made by fallible and fallen presidents and peoples.” Illus. -
Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham has written a biography of Lincoln as seen through the lens of slavery and the president's evolving beliefs about it. It is a story that shows Lincoln as a real human being, not a mythical figure, and Meacham delivers it almost as well as he has written it. He does tend to fall into some odd phrasing, and it is sometimes hard to tell where quoted material begins and ends, but his voice is clear and strong, and he knows where he wants his emphases to fall. The story of Lincoln is familiar in its outline, but Meacham's approach illuminates it in ways that will be unfamiliar and fresh to nonexperts. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine -
June 10, 2024
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Meacham's (His Truth Is Marching On) biography of Abraham Lincoln centers on Lincoln's ability to grow and change as a human being while maintaining faith in his country and his religious beliefs. Narrating his own work, Meacham briefly covers Lincoln's early years, showing how his childhood influenced his thoughts about enslavement and secession. He offers descriptions of Lincoln's political career, the many elections he did not win, and his election to the presidency. As president of a country on the brink of implosion, Lincoln made numerous attempts to avoid war with the South, offering compensation for individuals freed from enslavement, investigating deportation of enslaved people to places outside the U.S., and even offering to allow Southern states to maintain the horrific practice within their borders. Lincoln's views on emancipation evolved over time, governed by his desire to promote justice, mercy, and honor. Meacham's sonorous voice and deliberate pacing make for an appealing and captivating listen. VERDICT This book provides a new lens through which to understand Lincoln's motivations and the issues that modified his worldview. Lincoln aficionados, Civil War buffs, and students alike should enjoy.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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