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Paperback Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction Book

ISBN: 0195367804

ISBN13: 9780195367805

Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

(Part of the Very Short Introductions (#203) Series, Oxford's Very Short Introductions series Series, and OUP Very Short Introductions (#123) Series)

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Book Overview

Beneath the surface of the apparently untutored and deceptively frank Abraham Lincoln ran private tunnels of self-taught study, a restless philosophical curiosity, and a profound grasp of the fundamentals of democracy. Now, in Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction, the award-winning Lincoln authority Allen C. Guelzo offers a penetrating look into the mind of one of our greatest presidents.

If Lincoln was famous for reading aloud from joke books, Guelzo shows that he also plunged deeply into the mainstream of nineteenth-century liberal democratic thought. Guelzo takes us on a wide-ranging exploration of problems that confronted Lincoln and liberal democracy--equality, opportunity, the rule of law, slavery, freedom, peace, and his legacy. The book sets these problems and Lincoln's responses against the larger world of American and trans-Atlantic liberal democracy in the 19th century, comparing Lincoln not just to Andrew Jackson or John Calhoun, but to British thinkers such as Richard Cobden, Jeremy Bentham, and John Bright, and to French observers Alexis de Tocqueville and Fran ois Guizot. The Lincoln we meet here is an Enlightenment figure who struggled to create a common ground between a people focused on individual rights and a society eager to establish a certain moral, philosophical, and intellectual bedrock. Lincoln insisted that liberal democracy had a higher purpose, which was the realization of a morally right political order. But how to interject that sense of moral order into a system that values personal self-satisfaction--"the pursuit of happiness"--remains a fundamental dilemma even today.

Abraham Lincoln was a man who, according to his friend and biographer William Henry Herndon, "lived in the mind." Guelzo paints a marvelous portrait of this Lincoln--Lincoln the man of ideas--providing new insights into one of the giants of American history.

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Customer Reviews

2 customer ratings | 2 reviews

Rated 4 stars
A Man of Ideas

This year, the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, has seen the publication of a number of short biographies for busy readers, including books by James McPherson Abraham Lincoln and George McGovernAbraham Lincoln (The American Presidents Series: The 16th President, 1861-1865) Unlike these books, which offer an overview of Lincoln's life and achievement, Allen Guelzo's new book, "Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction", published...

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Rated 5 stars
Excellent short biography about Lincoln

A very high benchmark set by this VSI book on short biography. Regardless of how many books you read about Lincoln, you could find things interesting and memorable from this slim volume, which is organized in major themes of Lincoln's life, achievements and historical significance. What an enjoyable read! Highly recommended.

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Rated 5 stars
Splendid in providing the intellectual context for Lincoln's achievements

This is a brief but brilliant book on Abraham Lincoln, which tries to show Lincoln as a product and developer of Enlightenment Liberalism. I've read many books on Lincoln, but most try to situate Lincoln in his historical and political context and not as a figure in the history of ideas. Not that Guelzo doesn't also explain Lincoln's historical context as well. I understand now better than before how Lincoln stood apart...

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Rated 4 stars
A Biography of Lincoln's Ideas

This is a rather unique treatment of Lincoln, but it is not easy to describe its uniqueness. Perhaps we might specify what the book is not. You won't find much about Lincoln's personal life here. There is not detailed info on his political career. The last four years of his life (the presidency) receive minimal coverage. His murder gets a paragraph. Then what *is* it about? When I was an undergraduate during the 1960s,...

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