Meacham does not portray Lincoln’s backstory as mere iconography - the log cabin, the backwoods education, the rail splitting. Fueling the national disaster was the “Big Lie” of Lincoln’s day - that slavery was a justifiable institution. Jon Meacham’s excellent new biography, “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle,” illuminates how Lincoln’s personal growth and travails enabled him to lead a nation along a fitful evolution toward freedom despite a catastrophic rebellion that denied it. While we tend to contemplate “The Great Emancipator” as fully formed well before he became the 16th president, his moral perspectives and political goals developed in a gradual process more akin to Darwin’s theories.

12, 1809, is the birthdate for both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle” by Jon Meacham (Random House)įun fact: Feb.

(Oct.This cover image released by Random House shows 'And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle' by Jon Meacham. Richly detailed and gracefully written, this is an essential reminder that “progress can be made by fallible and fallen presidents and peoples.” Illus. Light is shed on Lincoln’s failures, including his 1849 effort to abolish slavery in Washington, D.C., which would have required municipal officers to arrest and return to their owners any enslaved people who escaped into the district, as well as his “theological quest” to understand the “concepts of God and Providence” as he grappled with the issue of slavery and the tragic death of his son, Willie, in the White House. Pulitzer winner Meacham ( His Truth Is Marching On) more than justifies yet another Lincoln biography in this nuanced and captivating look at the president’s “struggle to do right as he defined it within the political universe he and his country inhabited.” Drawing sharp parallels to Lincoln’s battles against “an implacable minority gave no quarter in a clash over power, race, identity, money, and faith” and today’s “moment of polarization, passionate disagreement, and differing understandings of reality,” Meacham highlights Lincoln’s struggles to live up to a “transcendental moral order” that called on humans “to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God.” For Meacham, Lincoln is above all “an example of how even the most imperfect of people, leading the most imperfect of peoples,” can bend the arc of the universe toward justice.

Jon meacham and there was light