The Age of Lincoln

A History

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
Cover of the book The Age of Lincoln by Orville Vernon Burton, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Orville Vernon Burton ISBN: 9781429939553
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publication: July 8, 2008
Imprint: Hill and Wang Language: English
Author: Orville Vernon Burton
ISBN: 9781429939553
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication: July 8, 2008
Imprint: Hill and Wang
Language: English

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 age's most extraordinary accomplishment, was not its most profound. The enduring legacy of the age of Lincoln was inscribing personal liberty into the nation's millennial aspirations.

America has always perceived providence in its progress, but in the 1840s and 1850s pessimism accompanied marked extremism, as Millerites predicted the Second Coming, utopianists planned perfection, Southerners made slavery an inviolable honor, and Northerners conflated Manifest Destiny with free-market opportunity. Even amid historic political compromises the middle ground collapsed. In a remarkable reappraisal of Lincoln, the distinguished historian Orville Vernon Burton shows how the president's authentic Southernness empowered him to conduct a civil war that redefined freedom as a personal right to be expanded to all Americans. In the violent decades to follow, the extent of that freedom would be contested but not its central place in what defined the country.

Presenting a fresh conceptualization of the defining decades of modern America, The Age of Lincoln is narrative history of the highest order.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

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 age's most extraordinary accomplishment, was not its most profound. The enduring legacy of the age of Lincoln was inscribing personal liberty into the nation's millennial aspirations.

America has always perceived providence in its progress, but in the 1840s and 1850s pessimism accompanied marked extremism, as Millerites predicted the Second Coming, utopianists planned perfection, Southerners made slavery an inviolable honor, and Northerners conflated Manifest Destiny with free-market opportunity. Even amid historic political compromises the middle ground collapsed. In a remarkable reappraisal of Lincoln, the distinguished historian Orville Vernon Burton shows how the president's authentic Southernness empowered him to conduct a civil war that redefined freedom as a personal right to be expanded to all Americans. In the violent decades to follow, the extent of that freedom would be contested but not its central place in what defined the country.

Presenting a fresh conceptualization of the defining decades of modern America, The Age of Lincoln is narrative history of the highest order.

More books from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Cover of the book Big Snow by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book The Stories of Bernard Malamud by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book My Life Undecided: Prequel & Chapters 1-5 by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book On the Rez by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book What to Eat by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book Wit by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book The Control of Nature by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book Terror at Bottle Creek by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book Let Me Fix That for You by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book The Secret of Parenting by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book Hogs Wild by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book How to Read a Novelist by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book Acts and Letters of the Apostles by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book The Joker of Seville and O Babylon! by Orville Vernon Burton
Cover of the book The Repeal of Reticence by Orville Vernon Burton
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy