And There Was Light cover art

And There Was Light

Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

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And There Was Light

By: Jon Meacham
Narrated by: Jon Meacham
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About this listen

 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America.

“Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize • Longlisted for the Biographers International Plutarch Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews

A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.

At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right.

This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination in 1865: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln’s story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events. Abraham Lincoln Military Politics & Activism Presidents & Heads of State War Civil War

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All stars
Most relevant
One of the best books I have ever read. By the end, very moved indeed.

Unsurpassable

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Lincoln was not a Christian but I suspect Jon Meacham is because he does all he can to portray Lincoln as, if not actually a Christian, that would be too much, a God-fearing man. Lincoln was a politician who knew how to and was prepared to cater to popular beliefs. Lincoln talked of god the way Einstein did. The religious spin imbalances this book, but, if you can ignore that Lincoln's was a wonderful life and a magnificent man and his story is well told.

Lincoln with an overtly religious spin

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Two things disappointed with this book. The tone of the narration is as flat as a pancake and made the book vey dull which considering the subject is some achievement. The other is that the description of the book would have been more accurate if it was sold as an insight to Lincoln’s religious beliefs as the content of the book is overtly about religion.

More a religious book

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