Matthew Pinsker, Boss Lincoln, Signed on Bookplate

Description

Matthew Pinsker’s Boss Lincoln is a groundbreaking history that draws extensively on Lincoln’s private correspondence. He moves Lincoln from beyond the marble icon to realize a flesh-and-blood human.

Behind closed doors Lincoln was shrewd and insistent, capable of deft manipulation, blunt intimidation, and thoughtful argument as needed. As a decision-maker, he was attentive to detail but kept his own counsel and trusted his own acumen. His aides noted that in cabinet meetings Lincoln had the final say, and “there is no cavil.” Devoted to elections, he kept careful, handwritten tallies of party turnout, even gifting one to Mary Todd, another partisan, during their courtship. His hymn to democracy at Gettysburg in 1863 carried a partisan message to the political leaders gathered there: The fight for the union would take place at the polls as well as on the battlefield. Lincoln the boss often sacrificed candor for purpose. He used his White House meeting with Frederick Douglass in 1864, ostensibly about emancipation, to send a message to radicals about his need for their support.

With emancipation and the war’s outcome at stake, facing withering criticism from all sides, Lincoln won reelection by building a new political coalition through the Union party. Here was Lincoln the boss at his height, captured in absorbing detail in this indelible portrait of our greatest president.

As New. 

Pinsker, Matthew. BOSS LINCOLN: THE PARTISAN LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. NY: W. W. Norton. 2026. 1st ed., 576p., dj., Signed on bookplate. 

Due in mid-February. Order now and we will ship when it is available. We are also working on scheduling the author on A House Divided. Check back at this space or subscribe to our email list so you always know that latest information from A House Divided.