This multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history. Historian Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius, as the one-term congressman rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals to become president. When Lincoln emerged as the victor at the Republican National Convention, his rivals were dismayed. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically...

The legend of Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions. But what if almost everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in American history in order to build an empire? Here, through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays Lincoln as a man who devoted...

"Walter Stahr, author of the ... bestseller Seward, now tells the amazing story of Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, the most powerful and controversial of the men close to the president. Stanton raised an army of a million men and directed it from his Washington telegraph office, with Lincoln often at his side. He arrested and imprisoned thousands for "war crimes," some serious and some merely political. He was essential to the nation's...