Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for President Lincoln by William Lee Miller - Available

President Lincoln

The Duty of a Statesman

by William Lee Miller
Lloyd James
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
The American president has come to be the most powerful figure in the world—and back in the nineteenth century, a great man held that office. William Lee Miller's new book closely examines that great man in that hugely important office: Abraham Lincoln as president.


Wars waged by American presidents have come to be pivotal historical events. Here Miller analyzes the commander in chief who coped with the profound moral dilemmas of America's bloodiest war.


In his acclaimed book Lincoln's Virtues, Miller explored Abraham Lincoln's intellectual and moral development. Now he completes his "ethical biography," showing the amiable and inexperienced backcountry politician transformed by constitutional alchemy into an oath-bound head of state, slapped in the face from the first minute of his presidency by decisions of the utmost gravity and confronted by the radical moral contradiction left by the nation's Founders: universal ideals of Equality and Liberty and the monstrous injustice of human slavery.


With wit and penetrating sensitivity, Miller shows us a Lincoln with unusual intellectual power, as he brings together the great themes that will be his legend—preserving the United States of America while ending the odious institution that corrupted the nation's meaning. Miller finds in this superb politician a remarkable presidential combination: an indomitable resolve, combined with the judgment that keeps it from being mindless stubbornness; and a supreme magnanimity, combined with the discriminating judgment that keeps it from being sentimentality. Here is the realistic war leader persisting after multiple defeats, pressing his generals to take the battle to the enemy, insisting that the objective was the destruction of Lee's army and not the capture of territory, saying that breath alone kills no rebels, remarking that he regretted war does not admit of holy days, asking whether one could believe that he would strike lighter blows rather than heavier ones or leave any card unplayed. And here is the pardoner, finding every excuse to keep from shooting the simple soldier boy who deserts. Here too is the eloquent leader who describes the national task in matchless prose and who rises above vindictiveness and triumphalism as he guides the nation to a new birth of freedom.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 19, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400126392
      • File size: 553994 KB
      • Duration: 19:14:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This important work of scholarship is a companion to Miller's acclaimed LINCOLN'S VIRTUES. The emphasis of this work is on Lincoln as "politician"--not in the contemporary pejorative meaning, but in the sense of how the sixteenth president was able to work with, and through, people--as a statesman. Lincoln is seen as a man with the ability to get people, even those who despised or opposed him, to do what he wanted. He also possessed that rare trait of not caring who got the credit or glory. Unfortunately, the narration of this work is not up to task. Lloyd James has a soft, usually unvoiced, delivery style. Here his voice seems, at least to this reviewer, "small"--and the performance bland. M.T.F. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 17, 2007
      Subtle and nuanced, this study is something of a sequel to Miller's Lincoln's Virtues
      . Here he examines Honest Abe's moral and intellectual life while in the White House, prosecuting a bloody war. Miller finds that early in his presidency, Lincoln balanced two strong ethical imperatives—his duty to preserve the union and his determination not to fire the first shots. Of course, Miller also addresses that other great moral challenge: slavery. In short, says Miller, Lincoln believed slavery was “not only profoundly wrong but profoundly wrong specifically as measured by this nation's moral essence,” and he used a terrific amount of political savvy to push through emancipation. But more original is Miller's discussion of what Lincoln thought was at stake in the war. Through a close reading of the president's papers, Miller persuasively argues that Lincoln believed secession would not merely “diminish” or “damage” the United States but would destroy it. That, in turn, was an issue of global import, for if the American experiment failed, free government would not be secure anywhere. Miller has given us one of the most insightful accounts of Lincoln published in recent years.

    • Library Journal

      September 1, 2008
      This thoughtful and elegantly written sequel to Miller's 2002 biography, "Lincoln's Virtues", focuses on the decisions Lincoln faced as the Civil War threatened to destroy the Unionwell-trodden ground. But Miller's book differs in that it pays closer attention to the moral issues at play, e.g., Lincoln's commuting of the sentences of court-martialed soldiers. Lloyd James's (www.lloydjames.com) narration is competent but lacks energy, and his timing is often off. Really only for dedicated Lincoln aficionados or libraries stocking up on Lincoln biographies to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his February 12 birth. [Audio clip available through www.tantor.com; for a roundup of Lincoln books in this issue, see p. 136; additional reviews of Lincoln audiobooks forthcoming.Ed.]R. Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA

      Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading