And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America."In his captivating new book, Jon Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time" —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.A President who governed a country at war with itself has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Abraham Lincoln was president when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions inextricably bound up with money, power, race, identity, and faith. He was hated and hailed, excoriated and revered. In Lincoln we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations."Written with wisdom and grace" (Doris Kearns Goodwin), this illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment was essential to the story of jus