Stunning in its breadth and conclusions The Age of Lincoln is a fiercely original history of the five decades that pivoted around the presidency of Abraham Lincoln Abolishing slavery the ages most extraordinary accomplishment was not its most profound The enduring legacy of the age was inscribing personal liberty into the nations millennial aspirationsnbspAmerica has always perceived providence in its progress but in the s and s a pessimism accompanied a marked extremism With all sides claiming Gods blessing irreconcilable freedoms collided despite historic political compromises the middle ground collapsed In a remarkable reappraisal of Lincoln the distinguished historian Orville Vernon Burton shows how the presidents Southernness empowered him to conduct a civil war that redefined freedom as a personal right protected by the rule of law In the violent decades that followed the extent of that freedom would be contested by racism and unregulated capitalism but not its central place in what defined the countrynbspPresenting a fresh conceptualization of the opening decades of modern America The Age of Lincoln is narrative history of the highest order.
