And There Was Light

Lincoln read through his moral development, the slow forming of the conscience that would hold the Union together and end slavery. Meacham is less interested in the battles than in how a man arrives at the convictions that let him do hard right things at terrible cost. A study of moral leadership as something grown rather than given, and a portrait of the president who, more than any other, defined what the republic was for.

A presidential biographer and historian who writes the reassuring long view: that the country has faced its fears before and found its better angels. The Soul of America surveys the recurring struggle between hope and fear in the national life. And There Was Light reads the moral development of Abraham Lincoln. He writes to remind a worried public that the present trial has precedents, and that they were survived.