Orville Vernon Burton
Stunning in its breadth and conclusions, ,The Age of Lincoln ,is a fiercely original history of the five decades that pivoted around the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Abolishing slavery, the ageâ€™s most extraordinary accomplishment, was not its most profound. The enduring legacy of the age was inscribing personal liberty into the nationâ€™s millennial aspirations.,Â ,America has always perceived providence in its progress, but in the 1840s and 1850s a pessimism accompanied a marked extremism. With all sides claiming Godâ€™s blessing, irreconcilable freedoms collided; despite historic political compromises the middle ground collapsed. In a remarkable reappraisal of Lincoln, the distinguished historian Orville Vernon Burton shows how the presidentâ€™s Southernness empowered him to conduct a civil war that redefined freedom as a personal right protected by the rule of law. In the violent decades that followed, the extent of that freedom would be contested by racism and unregulated capitalism, but not its central place in what defined the country.,Â ,Presenting a fresh conceptualization of the opening decades of modern America, ,The Age of Lincoln ,is narrative history of the highest order.
History,Military History,Civil War,North American Hi...,American History,Nonfiction,Biography,Politics,Historical,American History,American Civil War
The Age of Lincoln