As a defender of national unity, a leader in war, and the emancipator of slaves, Abraham Lincoln lays ample claim to being the greatest of our presidents. This extraordinary biography by one of the most highly regarded historians on the subject examines Lincoln both as a rising politician and as president. While pursuing office, Lincoln drew strength from public opinion and from the machinery of his party. As a wartime president, he recognized the limits as well as the possibilities of power. In his struggle to end slavery, he found allies in the churches, their humanitarian agencies, and the volunteer Union Army. In illuminating the political talents that went hand in hand with a large and serious moral purpose, Carwardine gives us a fresh, important portrait of the incomparable Abraham Lincoln. "An illuminating and thoroughly intelligent assessment of Lincoln the politician...
Carwardine provides a comprehensive study of how an essentially good man could gain and wield power even in scoundrel times." "Carwardine's Lincoln Prize–winning study is not only analytical and smart, it's also delightfully readable-and it will surely emerge as one of the most important Lincoln books to be published this decade." "Stands up to any comparison...Carwardine wisely reinterprets many sources to present his nuanced overview of the moral man that was Abraham Lincoln." "Whereas a print reader might pause to reflect, in audio it is narrator Stefan Rudnicki's task to maintain the pace and rhythm of the whole. That he does so while staying true to the meditative character of the text is a measure of his impressive skill and discipline." "No one seriously interested in Lincoln can afford to ignore Carwardine's judicious work." "There is simply no other Lincoln biography like it." "Oxford don Richard Carwardine…paints a remarkable picture of the greatest of the Americans who fused the secular and the sacred." "An outstanding, detailed coverage which will prove a 'must' for any researching Lincoln's life or times."
