This definitive biography of Mary Todd Lincoln beautifully conveys her tumultuous life and times. A privileged daughter of the proud clan that founded Lexington, Kentucky, Mary fell into a stormy romance with the raw Illinois attorney Abraham Lincoln. For twenty-five years the Lincolns forged opposing temperaments into a tolerant, loving marriage. Even as the nation suffered secession and civil war, Mary experienced the tragedies of losing three of her four children and then her husband. An insanity trial orchestrated by her surviving son led to her confinement in an asylum. Mary Todd Lincoln is still often portrayed in one dimension, as the stereotype of the best-hated faults of all women. Here her life is restored for us whole.

Long considered the standard text in the field, The Civil War andReconstruction originally written by James G. Randall and revised byDavid Donald is now available in a thoroughly revised new editionprepared by David Donald, Jean H. Baker, and Michael F. Holt.

"[A] sweeping narrative, beautifully written and scrupulously evenhanded, [that] does full justice to Stevenson and his people. . . . Ambitious, elegiac, and provocative."--Richard Norton Smith, Chicago Tribune, front page review

Jean H. Baker tells the compelling story of four generations of an American family and its most celebrated memberthe high-minded, eloquent, and perennial also-ran icon of liberal politics, Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (1900-1965). The Stevensons is also a book about the relationship of a family to its times: With Baker's characteristically deft blend of the public and private, set on a broad canvas, the Stevenson story becomes an American saga.

Baker's biography "affords [Stevenson's] life a depth, historical and personal, that few other writers have acknowledged" (Kirkus Reviews).

"A valuable study of one of the most frustratingly elusive figures of mid-century American politics, rich in political anecdote but rigorously analytical."--Michael Kenney, Boston Globe

Jean H. Baker is professor of history at Goucher College and author of Mary Todd Lincoln (also a Norton paperback), described by the New York Times as "a striking success . . . absorbing . . . utterly compelling."

"A vivid portrait. . . . It is a great American story."--Baltimore Sun

"Scrupulous and perceptive."--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World