Beneath the surface of the apparently untutored and deceptively
frank Abraham Lincoln ran private tunnels of self-taught study, a
restless philosophical curiosity, and a profound grasp of the
fundamentals of democracy. Now, in Lincoln: A Very Short
Introduction, the award-winning Lincoln authority Allen C. Guelzo
offers a penetrating look into the mind of one of our greatest
presidents.
If Lincoln was famous for reading aloud from joke books, Guelzo
shows that he also plunged deeply into the mainstream of
nineteenth-century liberal democratic thought. Guelzo takes us on a
wide-ranging exploration of problems that confronted Lincoln and
liberal democracy--equality, opportunity, the rule of law, slavery,
freedom, peace, and his legacy. The book sets these problems and
Lincoln's responses against the larger world of American and
trans-Atlantic liberal democracy in the 19th century, comparing
Lincoln not just to Andrew Jackson or John Calhoun, but to British
thinkers such as Richard Cobden, Jeremy Bentham, and John Bright,
and to French observers Alexis de Tocqueville and Francois Guizot.
The Lincoln we meet here is an Enlightenment figure who struggled
to create a common ground between a people focused on individual
rights and a society eager to establish a certain moral,
philosophical, and intellectual bedrock. Lincoln insisted that
liberal democracy had a higher purpose, which was the realization
of a morally right political order. But how to interject that sense
of moral order into a system that values personal
self-satisfaction--"the pursuit of happiness"--remains a
fundamental dilemma even today.
Abraham Lincoln was a man who, according to his friend and
biographer William Henry Herndon, "lived in the mind." Guelzo
paints a marvelous portrait of this Lincoln--Lincoln the man of
ideas--providing new insights into one of the giants of American
history.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and
style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of
life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the
newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about
the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from
philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam."
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
