A Self-made Man: The Political Life Of Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1849

  • Author: Sidney Blumenthal
  • Narrator: Arthur Morey
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Duration: 21:12:15
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Synopsis

The first in a sweeping, multi-volume history of Abraham Lincoln—from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, death, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War plan of reconciliation—“engaging and informative and…thought-provoking” (The Christian Science Monitor).

From his youth as a voracious newspaper reader, Abraham Lincoln became a free thinker, reading Tom Paine, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible. In the “fascinating” (Booklist, starred review) A Self-Made Man, Sidney Blumenthal reveals how Lincoln’s antislavery thinking began in his childhood in backwoods Kentucky and Indiana. Intensely ambitious, he held political aspirations from his earliest years. Yet he was a socially awkward suitor who had a nervous breakdown over his inability to deal with the opposite sex. His marriage to the upper class Mary Todd was crucial to his social aspirations and his political career. “The Lincoln of Blumenthal’s pen is…a brave progressive facing racist assaults on his religion, ethnicity, and very legitimacy that echo the anti-Obama birther movement….Blumenthal takes the wily pol of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and goes deeper, finding a Vulcan logic and House of Cards ruthlessness” (The Washingtonian).

Based on prodigious research of Lincoln’s record, and of the period and its main players, Blumenthal’s robust biography reflects both Lincoln’s time and the struggle that consumes our own political debate. This first volume traces Lincoln from his birth in 1809 through his education in the political arts, rise to the Congress, and fall into the wilderness from which he emerged as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. “Splendid…no one can come away from reading A Self-Made Man…without eagerly anticipating the ensuing volumes.” (Washington Monthly).

Chapters

  • Self-Made Man 01 open

    Duration: 30s
  • Self-Made Man 02 Prologue

    Duration: 01h39s
  • Self-Made Man 03 Ch1A

    Duration: 48min
  • Self-Made Man 04 Ch1B

    Duration: 46min
  • Self-Made Man 05 Ch2

    Duration: 55min
  • Self-Made Man 06 Ch3

    Duration: 57min
  • Self-Made Man 07 Ch4A

    Duration: 44min
  • Self-Made Man 08 Ch4B

    Duration: 57min
  • Self-Made Man 09 Ch5

    Duration: 01h04min
  • Self-Made Man 10 Ch6

    Duration: 01h27min
  • Self-Made Man 11 Ch7

    Duration: 01h05min
  • Self-Made Man 12 Ch8

    Duration: 01h09min
  • Self-Made Man 13 Ch9

    Duration: 01h17min
  • Self-Made Man 14 Ch10

    Duration: 39min
  • Self-Made Man 15 Ch11

    Duration: 01h14min
  • Self-Made Man 16 Ch12

    Duration: 01h28min
  • Self-Made Man 17 Ch13

    Duration: 31min
  • Self-Made Man 18 Ch14A

    Duration: 01h29s
  • Self-Made Man 19 Ch14B

    Duration: 01h08min
  • Self-Made Man 20 Ch15

    Duration: 31min
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