Lincoln: A Foreigner's Quest - Couverture rigide

When Jan Morris first visited the United States, she was overwhelmed (and irritated) by the national obsession with Abraham Lincoln: the homespun myth of the awkward six-foot-four country boy who rose to unite the nation seemed too good to be true. So she resolved to make up her own mind, visiting the landmarks of his life to do so: his log-cabin birthplace in Kentucky via Gettysburg and all the way to Washington theatre where he was assassinated. This remarkable book, blending fact, narrative and imagination, is the result. 'A little jewel-box of a book ... there are passages here which are pure gold ... In an astonishingly short work, Jan Morris has conveyed the gawky but kindly expansiveness of the man and his country. If you have time to read only one book about Lincoln make it this one.' Spectator

With a fresh eye and inimitable style, the peerless travel and history writer Jan Morris journeys through the life of Abraham Lincoln to sketch an insightful new portrait of America's sixteenth president, one of our greatest and most enigmatic figures. Looking past his saintly image and log-cabin legend, Morris travels from Lincoln's birthplace to the White House to the infamous Ford Theater and conjures him in public and in private, as politician and as father, as commander-in-chief and as husband. With her skepticism and humor and marvelous sense of place, Morris seamlessly blends narrative, history, and biography to reveal the man behind the myth.