"While there are countless books on Lincoln, one of the most studied and written-about figures in history, Meacham's latest will undoubtedly become one of the most widely read and consulted. "Pulitzer winner Meacham 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'.Richly detailed and gracefully written, this is an essential reminder that 'progress can be made by fallible and fallen presidents and peoples." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) 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.
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. 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. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.Īt 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. 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. Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how - and why - he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America.Ī president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis.
0 kommentar(er)
