Publishers Weekly
12/13/2021
CNN anchor Avlon (Washington’s Farewell) studies in this revelatory history the “unfinished symphony” of Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to forge a just and lasting peace in the waning days of the Civil War. Promoting a vision of national reconciliation rooted in the “absence of malice” and the notion that “decency could be the most practical form of politics,” Lincoln defused volatile situations with Bible verses, humor, and logic, according to Avlon. He spotlights a visit Lincoln made in the last weeks of his life to City Point, Va., where he shared his desires for generous peace terms with Union Army commander Ulysses S. Grant, and, in one of the book’s most moving chapters, depicts Lincoln’s arrival in the fallen Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., where teeming, cheering throngs of freed Black slaves surrounded and followed the president through the streets. Skillfully drawing on Lincoln’s voluminous speeches and correspondence during this time, Avlon reveals a man of inestimable character (“character,” Avlon writes, “is the single most important quality in a president”) whose pragmatic plans for peace inspired future wartime presidents including Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman. Vividly told and expertly researched, this inspiring history draws on Lincoln’s example to chart “a path away from violent polarization and toward reconciliation in defense of democracy.” Agent: Sloan Harris, ICM Partners. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
A Best Book of 2022 by Foreign Affairs and Vanity Fair
"In this elegant, almost conversational, exposition of Lincoln the 'soulful centrist,' the 16th president appears as the reconciler in chief, who not only saved democracy from destruction in war but also pointed the way to saving it from inertia and futility in peace. And, Avlon believes, the Lincolnian example could be a similar balm for our political wounds today...To read these chapters is to discover Lincoln’s rare compound of 'empathy, honesty, humor and humility.' ...These are not unfamiliar tales to students of Lincoln, but Avlon makes the retelling affecting and powerful." — The New York Times Book Review
"In these dark times, it can be hard to even imagine what good, let alone great, national leadership looks like. That’s what makes Avlon’s account of Abraham Lincoln’s plan to win the peace after winning the Civil War so important... A tour de force... brims with astonishing details plucked from the vast library of historical facts." — Vanity Fair (A Best Book of the Year)
"Avlon’s highly readable, original treatment of President Abraham Lincoln’s tragically interrupted plans to advance political reconciliation in the wake of the U.S. Civil War is particularly timely now in a polarized United States and world." — Foreign Affairs (A Best Book of the Year)
"A tour de force... brims with astonishing details plucked from the vast library of historical facts." — Vanity Fair (A Best Book of the Year)
"Avlon’s durable faith in Lincoln offers a boost of confidence at a time when our history, instead of uniting us, has become yet another battleground. With insight, he chooses familiar and lesser-known Lincoln phrases to remind readers how much we still have to learn from our 16th president... As Lincoln understood, the work of democracy at home is indispensable to the work of peace abroad. It is reassuring to have the case for each restated so cogently." — The Washington Post
“Powerful and sublimely written... His enduring belief in the power of love and charity to move humanity forward is a legacy that belongs not just to the United States but to the world.” — The Washington Independent Review of Books
“Avlon is a master of the art of finding the universal in the particular. He sheds new light on the most tangled questions of our history, not least the tragedy of Reconstruction. With its graceful prose and wise insights, this is an important and absorbing contribution to the literature of the American Presidency.” — Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of America
"Brilliantly illuminates the enduring legacy of America's greatest president. With erudition and elegance, Avlon documents how Lincoln's sage political wisdom has helped democracy flourish. Avlon's exquisite storytelling provides a goldmine of actionable wisdom for our troubled times. Highly recommended!" — Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University and author of American Moonshot
“A stunning accomplishment, and an essential reminder that the Civil War – the most important event in our country’s history – is very much part of who we are as a people and a nation today.” — Ken Burns, Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker
“Carefully researched, persuasively written, and thoroughly relevant to our times. This is a reminder that Lincoln left a blueprint that provides a path forward to more harmonious relations with each other and with the rest of the world. ” – Edna Greene Medford, Ph.D., Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of History at Howard University
“Very timely. Lincoln and the Fight for Peace provides us hope, bringing history and visionary leadership alive. This speaks directly to what we most need in our current toxic polarization, applicable for every level of leadership and citizen engagement.”— John Paul Lederach, author of The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace
“Anyone who has watched John Avlon unleash his Reality Check commentaries weekday mornings on CNN knows that the broadcaster can be tenacious even as he advocates for justice and fairness. So, Avlon argues in this compelling new book, was Abraham Lincoln, the peace-loving leader who waged the bloodiest war in our history. Avlon is an insightful historian, as demonstrated by his 2017 triumph, Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations....Having written of the last days of the Union’s founder, Avlon now turns his attention to the last days of the Union’s savior. The result is another superbly researched and convincingly argued page turner.” – Harold Holzer, award-winning historian and Chairman of the Lincoln Forum
“Revelatory... Vividly told and expertly researched, this inspiring history draws on Lincoln’s example to chart 'a path away from violent polarization and toward reconciliation in defense of democracy.'” — Publishers Weekly
"A solid exploration of Lincoln’s clear intention to create a firm peace after the Civil War... A rich, readable historical study of Lincoln’s thinking, which remains timely."— Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal - Audio
06/01/2022
Journalist Avlon makes a solid case for Abraham Lincoln as peacemaker in an impassioned reading of his book. Opening with a visit to troops on the front lines in 1865, Avlon uses personal anecdotes to paint this portrait of Lincoln as a man who embodied decency in politics from a position of strength. Lincoln's humanity is a constant; he invited his sister-in-law to the White House and granted her amnesty after her husband, a Confederate general, had been recently killed at Chickamauga. An impassioned lecturer, the author uses an intense and intentional tone that varies pacing during dramatic passages ("the clock ticked toward freedom"), emphasizes words in sentences to effect (he was "pro-labor, -immigration, and -conservation"), and raises and lowers both volume and vocal pitch to keep listeners engaged. Vocal inflections for quotes within the text (the gravelly voiced "Know Nothing" speaker) are effective. He closes with continuing applications of Lincoln's vision of peace and a reading of both Lincoln's second inaugural address and his last speech, a call for reconciliation. VERDICT Fans of Abraham Lincoln will see a new perspective of this great president.—Stephanie Bange
Library Journal
01/01/2022
In this latest book, Avlon (Washington's Farewell) argues that Abraham Lincoln thought as much about how to achieve peace as to how to win the Civil War. Lincoln knew that binding up the nation's wounds from a civil war required more than raw power to impose on the defeated; it especially required magnanimity to bring the defeated back willingly to the national fold. But magnanimity would only count if it came from a position of strength and clear purpose. In Avlon's telling, Lincoln's approach to peace rested on three "indispensable conditions" that the Confederates were required to accept, from which he never deviated: unconditional surrender, restoration of the Union, and the end of slavery forever. In his very readable, if sometimes meandering, book, Avlon does not break new interpretive ground, but he does provide many personal, policy, and political details of Lincoln's thought and actions. VERDICT Avlon sometimes strains to make Lincoln's Civil War-era approach to peace applicable to world wars, and relies too much on post-assassination memoirs for his Lincoln tales, but he does make the case that to win a war one must also know how to win the peace and invest in doing so.—Randall M. Miller
Kirkus Reviews
2022-01-21
A solid exploration of Lincoln’s clear intention to create a firm peace after the Civil War.
By April 4, 1865, as the president toured the fallen Confederate capital of Richmond, after four years of political, military, and personal crisis, he had a vision for a lasting, nonpunitive peace. “In this twilight between war and peace, the outcome was certain, but the terms were not yet determined,” writes CNN anchor and senior political analyst Avlon. “Lincoln repeated his three ‘indispensable conditions’ for peace: no ceasefire before surrender, the restoration of the Union, and the end of slavery for all time. Everything else was negotiable.” Having just been confidently reelected, Lincoln knew his mission was to turn quickly from war to peace and secure the reattachment of the former Rebel states to the newly affirmed union. The author traces the evolution of Lincoln’s pioneering vision of reconciliation and reconstruction. “Working without a historic parallel to guide him,” writes Avlon, “Lincoln established a new model of leadership.” First and foremost, he insisted on unconditional surrender, followed by the establishment of the rule of law. He sought to rededicate the South to representative democracy and then move the country’s focus to the great Western expanse. The author points out how Ulysses S. Grant’s famously generous terms of surrender to Robert E. Lee at Appomattox were a direct expression of Lincoln’s wishes. Avlon also shows how the president, who was honest, pious, humble, and fond of speaking in parables, modeled his concept of peace on the golden rule. His focus sharpened in the last six weeks of his life, a period that the author examines in fascinating detail. Tough-minded but tender-hearted, Lincoln created a blueprint that has been used in a variety of scenarios since, from the Marshall Plan to the political reconciliation effected in South Africa after the defeat of apartheid.
A rich, readable historical study of Lincoln’s thinking, which remains timely.
