by Joshua Zeitz
First published 2023
Abraham Lincoln keeps organized Christianity at a distance throughout his early political career. He never joins a church and attends Sunday services only occasionally with his wife. But as the Civil War intensifies and personal tragedy strikes his household, Lincoln undergoes a profound spiritual transformation. He recognizes the growing political and military power of the Christian community and begins to embrace evangelical Protestant beliefs. Lincoln tells Americans the war represents divine punishment for slavery's sins. He becomes the first president to effectively harness popular religious enthusiasm to build support for his political cause. The president holds unconventional beliefs that Americans misunderstand both during his lifetime and after his death. Joshua Zeitz examines how Lincoln's spiritual evolution intertwined with the war effort, showing how religion motivated millions of Northerners to interpret the carnage and upheaval of the 1850s and 1860s. The book explores Lincoln's complicated relationship with faith and how Americans later memorialized him as a Christian martyr.
Genres: biography, civil-war, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, christianity, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-transformation, historical-figure, political-intrigue
Setting: United States
Period: 19th Century, 1850s, 1860s
334 pages · Kindle Edition · Viking