NCW Libraries

Everyone wants to define the man who signed his name "A. Lincoln." In his lifetime and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves to characterize Lincoln according to their own label or libel. In this magnificent book, Ronald C. White, Jr., offers a fresh and compelling definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity -- what today's commentators would call "authenticity"--Whose moral compass holds the key to understanding his life. Through...

"In Ways and Means, journalist Roger Lowenstein reveals the unlikely story of how Abraham Lincoln used the urgency of financing the Civil War to transform a union of states into one united nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and his congress, changed the direction of the country"--

Goodheart (Washington College, Maryland) and some of his students found an attic full of family papers spanning 13 generations of the owners' family, and among those papers was a bundle of documents tied up with a ribbon and labeled "1861." Those documents inspired his curiosity regarding what ordinary citizens and national leaders were thinking and how they were reacting to the shattering events that were unfolding. This study brings those questions...

Masur tells the story of the period between September 22, 1862, when Lincoln issued his preliminary Proclamation, and January 1, 1863, when he signed the significantly altered decree.

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...

A three-part documentary event. Abraham Lincoln is a definitive biography of the 16th president, the man who led the country during its greatest crisis. Featuring over seven hours of compelling live-action scripted scenes, interviews with esteemed historians and public figures including President Barack Obama as well as archival materials, and segments acknowledging the invaluable influence of abolitionists-such as Frederick Douglass in seizing the...

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

"The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War -- a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict. This [...] new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the war. Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress--Thaddeus...

"Walter Stahr, award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Seward, tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's indispensable Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, the man the president entrusted with raising the army that preserved the Union. Of the crucial men close to President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (1814-1869) was the most powerful and controversial. Stanton raised, armed, and supervised the army of a million men who won the Civil...