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Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
by Allen C. Guelzo
An intimate study of Abraham Lincoln's powerful vision of democracy, which guided him through the Civil War and is still relevant today—by a best-selling historian and three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize
Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment, and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know less about Lincoln's penetrating ideas and beliefs about democracy, which were every bit as important as his character in sustaining him through the crisis.
Allen C. Guelzo, one of America's foremost experts on Lincoln, captures the president's firmly held belief that democracy was the greatest political achievement in human history. He shows how Lincoln's deep commitment to the balance between majority and minority rule enabled him to stand firm against secession while also committing the Union to reconciliation rather than recrimination in the aftermath of war. In bringing his subject to life as a rigorous and visionary thinker, Guelzo assesses Lincoln's actions on civil liberties and his views on race, and explains why his vision for the role of government would have made him a pivotal president even if there had been no Civil War. Our Ancient Faith gives us a deeper understanding of this endlessly fascinating man and shows how his ideas are still sharp and relevant more than 150 years later.
"Lincoln's political philosophy in sharp relief...A brilliant, evenhanded, and timely political history." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Historian Guelzo (Robert E. Lee) plumbs the depths of Abraham Lincoln's passion for American democracy in this combative study that seeks to silence the institution's "cultured despisers" by illuminating the president's eloquent defense of it...It's an erudite if contentious consideration of Lincoln's feelings about the American experiment." —Publishers Weekly
This information about Our Ancient Faith was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Allen C. Guelzo is Senior Research Scholar at the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of several books about the Civil War and early-nineteenth-century American history. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History and has been awarded the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize three times. He lives in Pennsylvania.
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