The American Civil War & Reconstruction
Whistlestop Bookshop’s first store opened in Gettysburg in 1985. Eventually, over 19 years there, our Civil War section grew to be three large wall cases. A disproportionate percentage of it, naturally, was about the battle of Gettysburg and biographies of those who fought there. In addition to this book selling experience, my southern upbringing and Army family life created a lifelong interest in the War Between the States and all of its complexities. It is an understandable national obsession, considering how the first half of our nation’s history contributed to its ferocity, and the second half of our history has been the struggle to live with and understand the consequences.
All the Powers of the Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln volume 3: 1856-1860
All the Powers of the Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln volume 3: 1856-1860
Lincoln’s incredible ascent to power in a world of chaos is newly revealed in this “compelling, original, and elegantly written” (Michael Beschloss, New York Times bestselling author) third volume of the “magisterial” (The New York Times Book Review) Political Life of Abraham Lincoln series, following A Self-Made Man and Wrestling with His Angel.
After a period of depression that he would ever find his way to greatness, Lincoln takes on the most powerful demagogue in the country, Stephen Douglas, in the debates for a senate seat. He sidelines the frontrunner William Seward, a former governor and senator for New York, to cinch the new Republican Party’s nomination.
All the Powers of Earth is the political story of all time. Lincoln achieves the presidency by force of strategy, of political savvy and determination. This is Abraham Lincoln, who indisputably becomes the greatest president and moral leader in the nation’s history. But he must first build a new political party, brilliantly state the anti-slavery case and overcome shattering defeat to win the presidency. In the years of civil war to follow, he will show mightily that the nation was right to bet on him. He was its preserver, a politician of moral integrity.
All the Powers of Earth is “as essential as any political biography is likely to be” and Sidney Bluementhal is “the definitive chronicler of Lincoln’s political career” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).