White lincoln biography

• Team of Rivals

• The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
• By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
• Length: 41 hrs and 32 mins
• Unabridged

• Overall

• Performance

• Story

On May 18, , William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry. Throughout the turbulent s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war.

• 5 out of 5 stars

• Beautiful, Heartbreaking, and Informative

• By JJ on

Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

A. Lincoln and the Promise of America

He signed his name "a. lincoln." a visitor to abraham lincoln's Springfield, Illinois, home at Eighth and Jackson would find "A. Lincoln" in silvered Roman characters affixed to an octagonal black plate on the front door. All through his life, people sought to complete the A-to define Lincoln, to label or libel him. Immediately after his death and continuing to the present, Americans have tried to explain the nation's most revered president. A. Lincoln continues to fascinate us because he eludes simple definitions and final judgments.

Tall, raw boned, and with an unruly shock of black hair, his appearance could not have been more different from that of George Washington and the other founding fathers. Walt Whitman, who saw the president regularly in Washington, D.C., wrote that Lincoln's face was "so awful ugly it becomes beautiful." But when Lincoln spoke, audiences forgot his appearance as they listened to his inspiring words.

He is one of the few Americans whose life and words bridge time. Illinois senator Everett Dirksen said fifty years ago, "The first task of every politician is to get right with Lincoln." At critical moments in our nation's history, his eloquent words become contemporary.

As a young man, he won the nickname "Honest Abe" when his store in New Salem, Illinois, "winked out." Rather than cut and run from his debts in the middle of the night, as was common on the frontier, he stayed and paid back what he called his "National Debt." His political opponents invented a long list of denunciations, ranging from "the Black Republican" to "the original gorilla" to "the dictator." His supporters crafted monikers of admiration: "Old Abe," affectionately attached to him while he was still a relatively young man, and the "Rail Splitter," to remind voters in the presidential campaign of his roots in what was th

&#;A. Lincoln: A Biography&#; is Ronald White, Jr.&#;s biography of Abraham Lincoln. White is the author of seven other books including two previous books on Lincoln. He is a graduate of UCLA and Princeton Theological Seminary and is a Visiting Professor of History at UCLA. He is currently working on a biography of Ulysses S. Grant, to be published in early

There is certainly no shortage of biographies of Abraham Lincoln. So it is high praise that White&#;s effort is often described as the best single-volume Lincoln biography since David Herbert Donald&#;s &#;Lincoln&#; was published in Consistent with my expectations, this book provided a broad, clear and penetrating review of our sixteenth president.

Although this is a lengthy biography (with nearly pages of text and almost pages of notes) it is lucid, free flowing and extremely easy to read. White manages to pack his pages with a significant amount of detail but without losing the big picture or slowing the book&#;s pace. Numerous maps, charts, illustrations and photographs are embedded throughout the text, and they appear when contextually appropriate rather than being bunched together arbitrarily as is the case with many books.

White&#;s synthesis of Lincoln&#;s complex life is well calibrated and his frequent review of Lincoln&#;s most notable letters and speeches is interesting and insightful. Equally valuable is the way this book traces Lincoln&#;s public and private views toward slavery from his childhood through his presidency. Coverage of the Lincoln Douglas debates of proves absolutely superb. But most commendable may be the way White&#;s biography demonstrates Lincoln&#;s lifetime of enormous intellectual and emotional growth and maturity.

Exceptional in many ways, this biography is not perfect. The first half of the book is less interesting than I would have liked and provides less insight into Lincoln&#;s ancestry and childhood than anoth

Reviews for A. Lincoln

&#;Ronald C. White&#;s A. Lincoln is the best biography of Lincoln since David Donald&#;s Lincoln (). In many respects it is better than Donald&#;s biography, because it has incorporated the scholarship of the past fourteen years and is written in a fluent style that will appeal to a large range of general readers as well as Lincoln aficionados. The special strengths of A. Lincoln that lift it above other biographies include a brilliant analysis of Lincoln&#;s principal speeches and writings, which were an important weapon in his political leadership and statesmanship, and on which Ron White is the foremost expert, having written two major books on Lincoln&#;s speeches and writings. Another strength is White&#;s analysis of Lincoln&#;s evolving religious convictions, which shaped the core of his effective leadership, his moral integrity. White&#;s discussion of Lincoln&#;s changing attitudes and policies with respect to slavery and race is also a key aspect of this biography. Amid all the books on Lincoln that will be published during the coming year, this one will stand out as one of the best.&#;

&#;James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom and This Mighty Scourge

&#;A beautifully written, deeply personal story of Lincoln&#;s life and service to his country. Ron White&#;s moving account is particularly strong in its analyses of Lincoln&#;s rhetoric and the process by which the President reached decisions.&#;

&#;Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America

&#;Each generation requires—and seems to inspire—its own masterful one-volume Lincoln biography, and scholar Ronald C. White has crowned the bicentennial year with an instant classic for the 21st century. Wise, scholarly, even-handed, and elegant, the book at once informs and inspires, with a rewarding new emphasis on the complex meaning and timeless importance of Lincoln’s great words. Brimming with ne