All the Powers of Earth

April 1, 2019

Following A Self-Made Man and Wrestling with His Angel, both praised, here is the third volume in journalist and former Clinton adviser Blumenthal's thoroughgoing study of President Abraham Lincoln. This book opens with Lincoln refusing to compromise on the secession crisis and ends with the Emancipation Proclamation. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 5, 2019
In this overstuffed, but vivid and intelligent, third entry in his planned five-volume exploration of Abraham Lincoln’s political life, Blumenthal (Wrestling with the Angel) surveys the pre–Civil War American political scene. Readers may be surprised that Lincoln barely enters the narrative until it’s about a quarter through; Blumenthal focuses on context, exploring the political contention around the expansion of slavery that resulted in Southern representative Preston Brooks violently attacking abolitionist senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. When Lincoln’s story picks up again, he has not held elected office in nearly 10 years; he reenters the political spotlight with bold antislavery speeches, such as his famous “A House Divided,” and the dramatic 1858 debates with incumbent Illinois senator Stephen Douglas. All this leads to national attention and eventually the Republican presidential nomination. Blumenthal conveys his impressive research in literary style, drawing on well-framed and -chosen excerpts from primary sources for a fast-paced and evocative result, but includes too many biographical sketches of minor historical players. Despite that, this is an entertaining, Wolf Hall–esque treatment that will please Blumenthal’s fans and win new ones to this series.

August 15, 2019
The third of a projected five-volume political biography, this one dealing robustly with Lincoln's political ascent, ending with his election to the presidency in 1860. Blumenthal--who has served as a senior adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Washington editor for the New Yorker--has published two earlier volumes in his series (Wrestling With His Angel, 2017, etc.). Here, the author continues to establish himself as the definitive chronicler of Lincoln's political career. The years 1856-1860 were tumultuous ones in American history, and Blumenthal astutely examines many seminal events: slavery's fracture of the country, the 1856 assault on Sen. Charles Sumner, the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's deadly attacks at Pottawatomie Creek, 1856, and Harpers Ferry, 1859, Lincoln's transformative Cooper Union speech in 1860. Some crucial characters appear throughout, including Frederick Douglass, Emerson and Thoreau, Dred Scott, and John Wilkes Booth, who was present at Brown's hanging and at some of Stephen A. Douglas' presidential campaign appearances. Some facts will surprise readers with only a modest knowledge of Lincoln. For example, he didn't like to be called "Abe" (he preferred "Lincoln"); listeners were sometimes put off by his voice, which could be high and squeaky; and he was masterful behind the scenes of his campaigns--he was, Blumenthal reminds us continually, a politician. Some will probably be surprised to learn that he did not leave his home in Springfield during the entire campaign and that he received less than 40 percent of the popular vote. The Democratic Party had split--North and South--thus assuring Lincoln's victory. Blumenthal's explorations of all of these elements are stunningly thorough, both wide-angled and microscopic. He quotes from newspapers, books, speeches, congressional transcripts, and numerous other sources. At the beginning, he includes a timeline of major events and cast of major characters. As essential as any political biography is likely to be.

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Starred review from September 1, 2019
As he probes behind the legend that poet Carl Sandburg forged in his Pulitzer-winning, six-volume biography of Lincoln, Blumenthal is, volume by volume, bringing into view the real man: a courageous statesman but also an adroit politician. With painstaking research illuminated by penetrating insight, Blumenthal limns the ascent of the Great Emancipator in a turbulent era. Readers see this small-town Illinois lawyer catch the eye of prominent journalists in his 1858 senatorial debates with Stephen Douglas as he skewers his Democratic opponent for the moral bankruptcy of his support for the Dred Scott decision, which restricts the founders' vision to one race, and for the political confusion in his popular sovereignty doctrine, which kindles mob warfare between Kansas' pro-slave and anti-slave factions. Blumenthal shows how Lincoln's incisive rhetoric reorients the new Republican Party, which abandons longtime favorite William Seward to rally behind the Railsplitter, unexpectedly giving him the party's 1860 presidential nomination. Readers will recognize Lincoln's integrity in his unwavering condemnation of slavery as an evil institution, though they will see why?in his desire (ultimately vain) to hold a divided nation together?Lincoln repudiates John Brown and other violent abolitionists. The brilliance of this third volume of Blumenthal's projected five-volume biography will heighten expectations for the next installment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)