In the first multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the life of one of America’s greatest presidents. Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America’s sixteenth president. Volume 1 covers Lincoln’s early childhood, his experiences as a farm boy in Indiana and Illinois, his legal training, and the political ambition that led to a term in Congress in the 1840s. In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln’s life during his presidency and the Civil War, narrating in fascinating detail the crisis over Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s own battles with relentless office seekers, hostile newspaper editors, and incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also offers new interpretations of Lincoln’s private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd and the untimely deaths of two sons to disease. But through it all-his difficult childhood, his contentious political career, a fratricidal war, and tragic personal losses-Lincoln preserved a keen sense of humor and acquired a psychological maturity that proved to be the North’s most valuable asset in winning the Civil War. This landmark audiobook establishes Burlingame as the most assiduous Lincoln biographer of recent memory and brings Lincoln alive as never before.
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“The granddaddy of all the recent books [on Lincoln]…Monumental in size, depth, and scholarship, this is the new standard biography of our time and surpasses all other life portraits of our sixteenth president, and is the most important book of the bicentennial.”
— Washington Times
“A magisterial enterprise.”
— New York Times“If you aspire to Ultimate Lincoln Knowledge this is a must-read.”
— Chicago Tribune“No review could do complete justice to the magnificent two-volume biography that has been so well-wrought by Michael Burlingame.”
— Atlantic MonthlyBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Michael Burlingame is the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois, Springfield. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life and The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln; he is also the editor of An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays and Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1864. Burlingame has received a number of awards and accolades throughout his career, including the Abraham Lincoln Association Book Prize, the Lincoln Diploma of Honor from Lincoln Memorial University, and was inducted into the Lincoln Academy of Illinois. He currently resides in Springfield, Illinois.
Lloyd James (a.k.a. Sean Pratt) has been a working professional actor in theater, film, television, and voice-overs for more than thirty years. He has narrated over one thousand audiobooks and won numerous Earphones Awards and nominations for the Audie Award and the Voice Arts Award. He holds a BFA degree in acting from Santa Fe University, New Mexico.