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Simon & Schuster
April 2015
On Sale: April 7, 2015
ISBN: 147677725X
EAN: 9781476777252
Kindle: B00LD1ONOE
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
The first of a three-volume history of Lincoln as a political geniusβfrom his obscure beginnings to his presidency, assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as βa slave,β to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. From his youth as a βnewsboy,β a voracious newspaper reader, Lincoln became a free thinker, reading Tom Paine, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible, and studying Euclid to sharpen his arguments as a lawyer. Lincolnβs anti-slavery thinking began in his childhood amidst the Primitive Baptist antislavery dissidents in backwoods Kentucky and Indiana, the roots of his repudiation of Southern Christian pro-slavery theology. Intensely ambitious, he held political aspirations from his earliest years. Obsessed with Stephen Douglas, his political rival, he battled him for decades. Successful as a circuit lawyer, Lincoln built his team of loyalists. Blumenthal reveals how Douglas and Jefferson Davis acting together made possible Lincolnβs rise. Blumenthal describes a socially awkward suitor who had a nervous breakdown over his inability to deal with the opposite sex. His marriage to the upper class Mary Todd was crucial to his social aspirations and his political career. Blumenthal portrays Mary as an asset to her husband, a rare woman of her day with strong political opinions. He discloses the impact on Lincolnβs anti-slavery convictions when handling his wifeβs legal case to recover her fatherβs fortune in which he discovered her cousin was a slave. Blumenthalβs robust portrayal is based on prodigious research of Lincolnβs record and of the period and its main players. It reflects both Lincolnβs time and the struggle that consumes our own political debate.
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