The BookBrowse Review

Published January 24, 2024

ISSN: 1930-0018

printable version
This is a free issue of our twice-monthly membership magazine, The BookBrowse Review.
Join | Renew | Give a Gift Membership | BookBrowse for Libraries
Back    Next

Contents

In This Edition of
The BookBrowse Review

Highlighting indicates debut books

Editor's Introduction
Reviews
Hardcovers Paperbacks
First Impressions
Latest Author Interviews
Recommended for Book Clubs
Book Discussions

Discussions are open to all members to read and post. Click to view the books currently being discussed.

Publishing Soon

Literary Fiction


Historical Fiction


Short Stories


Essays


Poetry & Novels in Verse


Mysteries


Thrillers


Romance


Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History


Biography/Memoir


History, Current Affairs and Religion


Science, Health and the Environment


Young Adults

Literary Fiction


Historical Fiction


Poetry & Novels in Verse

  • Poemhood by Amber McBride, Erica Martin, Taylor Byas (rated 5/5)

Thrillers


Romance


Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History


Biography/Memoir


Extras
  • Blog:
    Imagining Life on Mars: A Reading List
  • Wordplay:
    T E H N Clothes
Book Jacket

Our Ancient Faith
Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
by Allen C. Guelzo
6 Feb 2024
272 pages
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN-13: 9780593534441
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Critics:
mail to a friend   

An intimate study of Abraham Lincoln's powerful vision of democracy, which guided him through the Civil War and is still relevant today—by a best-selling historian and three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize

Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment, and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know less about Lincoln's penetrating ideas and beliefs about democracy, which were every bit as important as his character in sustaining him through the crisis.

Allen C. Guelzo, one of America's foremost experts on Lincoln, captures the president's firmly held belief that democracy was the greatest political achievement in human history. He shows how Lincoln's deep commitment to the balance between majority and minority rule enabled him to stand firm against secession while also committing the Union to reconciliation rather than recrimination in the aftermath of war. In bringing his subject to life as a rigorous and visionary thinker, Guelzo assesses Lincoln's actions on civil liberties and his views on race, and explains why his vision for the role of government would have made him a pivotal president even if there had been no Civil War. Our Ancient Faith gives us a deeper understanding of this endlessly fascinating man and shows how his ideas are still sharp and relevant more than 150 years later.

"Lincoln's political philosophy in sharp relief...A brilliant, evenhanded, and timely political history." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Historian Guelzo (Robert E. Lee) plumbs the depths of Abraham Lincoln's passion for American democracy in this combative study that seeks to silence the institution's "cultured despisers" by illuminating the president's eloquent defense of it...It's an erudite if contentious consideration of Lincoln's feelings about the American experiment." —Publishers Weekly

Allen C. Guelzo is Senior Research Scholar at the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of several books about the Civil War and early-nineteenth-century American history. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History and has been awarded the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize three times. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.