Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

by Richard Brookhiser Narrated by Norman Dietz

Overview

In Founders' Son, celebrated historian Richard Brookhiser presents a compelling new biography of Abraham Lincoln that highlights his lifelong struggle to carry on the work of the Founding Fathers. Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, DC, Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite Lincoln's many roles and his varied life, he returned time and time again to the Founders. They were rhetorical and political touchstones, the basis of his interest in politics, and the lodestars guiding him as he navigated first Illinois politics and then the national scene.




But their legacy was not sufficient. As the Civil War lengthened and the casualties mounted, Lincoln wrestled with one more paternal figure-God the Father-to explain to himself, and to the nation, why ending slavery had come at such a terrible price.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"[Brookhiser's] melding of Lincoln with the founders yields significant implications for the interpretation of the American past—in both the Revolutionary and Civil War eras."—Drew Gilpin Faust, New York Times Book Review

"Beautifully written and choked with insights.... For Brookhiser, Lincoln's life was an encounter with a succession of fathers: his own, the Founding Fathers, and God the father. Can it be only a coincidence that in time he himself was regarded as Father Abraham?"—Boston Globe

"Mr. Brookhiser positions Lincoln as the self-conscious heir of the 18th-century Founders and thus fends off the claim (made in the fever swamps of both left and right) that Lincoln subverted the Constitution in the interests of creating an all-powerful central government."—Allen Guelzo, Wall Street Journal

"Brookhiser has done the seemingly impossible: He has written a life of Lincoln that is fresh, original, and ideal for those new to the subject.... With deft, epigrammatic phrases Brookhiser distills Lincoln's life to its essence."—National Review

"Since he is well-chronicled, and often mythologized, it is hard to expand our understanding of Lincoln. But Richard Brookhiser does an expert job of finding new room."—Weekly Standard

"Founders' Son is not just another Lincoln biography (more than 15,000 have already been published). Instead, it is a chronicle of Lincoln's mental and spiritual evolution, much of it written in his own words; indeed, Abraham Lincoln has almost all the best lines."—Washington Times

"Abraham Lincoln is the most written-about man in American history, yet Richard Brookhiser, a historian and writer of extraordinary talent, has written an analysis that is lively, incisive, novel—and brilliant. This book reminds us of Lincoln's reverence for the Founders, his 'stubborn concern for first principles' and—ultimately—the often-overlooked reverence for the Almighty God that guided him in America's darkest hours."—John Boehner, Speaker of the House

"With characteristic elegance and economy, Richard Brookhiser demonstrates that Lincoln assured America a future by reconnecting the nation with its past. With, that is, the world-shaking egalitarianism of the Founders' natural-rights doctrine. Hence this book is—whether Brookhiser meant so or not—a primer on the great topic of present-day politics, the relevance of the Declaration of Independence as a manifesto for limited government."—George F. Will

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"The narrative always smoothly returns, though, to the Founders and Lincoln's unceasing attempt to divine their intentions and to examine the institutions they built and the opportunity they created for someone like him to thrive." —Kirkus

Kirkus Reviews

2014-07-30
An author who specializes in biographies of the Founders looks at their influence on our 16th president.Only two of the men who fought in the Revolution, wrote the Declaration and framed the Constitution remained alive as Lincoln reached his 20s. By the time he departed Springfield in 1861, the president-elect had spent his political maturity pondering the lessons of the Founders, teasing out the principles that informed them as he faced a task he deemed "greater than George Washington's"—holding together a dangerously fragile union. Famously self-made, Lincoln learned most of what he knew from books. Byron, Shakespeare and the Bible account for the touches of poetry in his prose; to Euclid goes partial credit for the rigorous logic underpinning his arguments. The Founders, however, became Lincoln's most reliable instructors: Thomas Paine for plainspoken proofs; Washington as a model of virtue and for his love of liberty; the problematic Jefferson for the Declaration's perfect expression of the American purpose. National Review senior editor Brookhiser (James Madison, 2011, etc.) touches on many other influences that shaped Lincoln's mind, even throwing a little credit to Thomas Lincoln (something Abraham never did) for his son's talent for storytelling. If the author's attempt to link the figure of John Wilkes Booth to the dreaded and destructive "towering genius" prophesized in Lincoln's 1838 Lyceum Address doesn't quite work, his discussion of the second inaugural is genuinely moving and instructive. The narrative always smoothly returns, though, to the Founders and Lincoln's unceasing attempt to divine their intentions and to examine the institutions they built and the opportunity they created for someone like him to thrive. For years now, Brookhiser has helped bring the Founders back to life, precisely Lincoln's purpose as the president contemplated for his country a new birth of freedom, "the old freedom" they envisioned in 1776 but couldn't quite perfect.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170721504
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	01/13/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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