About this item
From acclaimed Abraham Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, a groundbreaking account of Lincoln's grappling with the politics of immigration against the backdrop of the Civil War.. In the three decades before the Civil War, some ten million foreign-born people settled in the United States, forever altering the nation's demographics, culture, and - perhaps most significantly - voting patterns. America's newest residents fueled the national economy, but they also wrought enormous changes in the political landscape and exposed an ugly, at times violent, vein of nativist bigotry.. Abraham Lincoln's rise ran parallel to this turmoil; even Lincoln himself did not always rise above it. Tensions over immigration would split and ultimately destroy Lincoln's Whig Party years before the Civil War.
About the Author
Harold Holzer, one of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era, serves as chairman of the Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. He has authored, coauthored, and edited forty-two books, including Emancipating Lincoln, Lincoln at Cooper Union, and three award-winning books for young readers: Father Abraham: Lincoln and His Sons, The President Is Shot!, and Abraham Lincoln, the Writer. His awards include the Lincoln Prize and the National Humanities Medal. He lives in New York City.
