Giants: Parallel Lives Of Frederick Douglass & Abraham Lincoln

Author: John Stauffer

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General Fields

  • : 49.99 AUD
  • : 9780446580090
  • : 146862
  • : 146862
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  • : 0.658
  • : December 2008
  • : United States
  • : 59.99
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  • : books

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  • : John Stauffer
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  • : Hardback
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  • : 973.70922
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  • : 448
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  • : 6pp of int photos
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Barcode 9780446580090
9780446580090

Description

They were the pre-eminent self-made men of their time. Abraham Lincoln was born dirt poor, had less than one year of formal schooling and became the nation's greatest President. Frederick Douglass spent the first twenty years of his life as a slave, had no formal schooling - his masters forbade him to read or write - and became one of the nation's greatest writers and activists. At a time when most whites would not let a black man cross their threshold, Lincoln met Douglass three times at the White House. Their friendship was based on usefulness: Lincoln recognised that he needed Douglass to help him destroy the Confederacy and preserve the Union; Douglass realised that Lincoln's shrewd sense of public opinion would serve his own goal of freeing the nation's blacks.

Reviews

"John Stauffer's GIANTS is a lyrical, insightful treatment of the fascinating relationship between two geniuses, one a politician and the other a radical reformer. Both Lincoln and Douglass heard the music of words in their heads as few others, and Stauffer has an ear for the two of them in harmony. That they started in such different places ideologically and yet moved together at the critical moment of emancipation makes this a timely and important book. Stauffer brings the tools of literature and history to bear on this comparison with unmatched skill." -- David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Frederick Douglass' Civil War and A Slave No More

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