| Lincoln and Leadership: Military, Political, and Religious Decision Making Contributor(s): Miller, Randall M. (Editor), Guelzo, Allen C. (Afterword by) |
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ISBN: 0823243451 ISBN-13: 9780823243457 Publisher: Fordham University Press OUR PRICE: $23.75 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2012 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877) - Biography & Autobiography | Presidents & Heads Of State - Political Science | Political Process - General |
| Dewey: 973.709 |
| LCCN: 2011050441 |
| Series: North's Civil War (Fup) |
| Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (0.45 lbs) 164 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Topical - Civil War |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A book that does something truly remarkable: says something new about Lincoln! Lincoln and Leadership offers fresh perspectives on the 16th president-making novel contributions to the scholarship of one of the more studied figures of American history. The book explores Lincoln's leadership through essays focused, respectively, on Lincoln as commander-in-chief, deft political operator, and powerful theologian. Taken together, the essays suggest the interplay of military, political, and religious factors informing Lincoln's thought and action and guiding the dynamics of his leadership. The contributors, all respected scholars of the Civil War era, focus on several critical moments in Lincoln's presidency to understand the ways Lincoln understood and dealt with such issues and concerns as emancipation, military strategy, relations with his generals, the use of black troops, party politics and his own re-election, the morality of the war, the place of America in God's design, and the meaning and obligations of sustaining the Union. Overall, they argue that Lincoln was simultaneously consistent regarding his commitments to freedom, democratic government, and Union but flexible, and sometimes contradictory, in the means to preserve and extend them. They further point to the ways that Lincoln's decision making defined the presidency and recast understandings of American exceptionalism. They emphasize that the real Lincoln was an unabashed party man and shrewd politician, a self-taught commander-in-chief, and a deeply religious man who was self-confident in his ability to judge men and to persuade them with words but unsure of what God demanded from America for its collective sins of slavery. Randall Miller's Introduction in particular provides essential weight to the notion that Lincoln's presidential leadership must be seen as a series of interlocking stories. In the end, the contributors collectively remind readers that the Lincoln enshrined as the Great Emancipator and savior of the Union was in life and practice a work-in-progress. And they insist that getting right with Lincoln requires seeing the intersections of his-and America's-military, political, and religious interests and identities. |
Contributor Bio(s): Miller, Randall M.: - Randall M. Miller is the William Dirk Warren '05 Sesquicentennial Chair and Professor of History at Saint Joseph's University. He is author or editor of numerous books. Among his books related to the Civil War are, as coeditor, Religion and the American Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1998), and The Birth of the Grand Old Party: The Republicans' First Generation (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). His most recent book, coauthored with Paul Cimbala, is The Northern Home Front in the Civil War (Praeger, 2012).Guelzo, Allen C.: - Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and Director of Civil War Studies at Gettysburg College. He is the author of numerous books treating subjects from Jonathan Edwards, to evangelical Christianity, to Lincoln and the Civil War era. Among his recent books are Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans, 1999), which won the Lincoln Prize for 2000; Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (Simon & Schuster, 2004), which won the Lincoln Prize for 2005; Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America (Simon & Schuster, 2008); Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009); and Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2009). |