Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction

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.

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 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.

Guelzo paints a marvelous portrait of this Lincoln-Lincoln the man of ideas-providing new insights into one of the giants of American history.