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Pearson Education author wins prestigious Lincoln prize

Pearson Education is extremely proud to announce that our recent Profile in Power, `Lincoln' by Professor Richard Carwardine has just won the Lincoln Prize.

This is a highly acclaimed award in American for Civil War and c19 history and this is the first time it has been won by a British scholar.

We spoke to Professor Carwardine to obtain his comments on winning this award.

”Naturally, I am delighted to learn that I have won this year’s Lincoln Prize. It is the greatest of all the accolades that an American Civil War historian could receive, and it is especially gratifying that the judges thought that a non-American had something fresh to say about one of the most written-about presidents of the United States.

My book is an analytical political biography. It recounts a compelling personal and public story: Lincoln’s winning the presidency, his wartime leadership, and his role in turning the war for the Union into a war for emancipation. It explores the nature of his beliefs and his deeply moral relationship to political power. But beyond that, it analyses the external sources of Lincoln’s authority. In the world's first mass democracy, winning the presidency depended on the interplay of personal ambition, public opinion, and the power of the political party. Then, during the Civil War, Lincoln used his party, the army and the religious institutions to sustain Union morale – essential to the North’s ultimate victory in a gruelling conflict.

I hope readers will be persuaded that Lincoln, in his encounter with slavery and secession, blended moral vision with attentive, day-to-day management; that understanding his career demands attention to his evolving and unorthodox religious ideas, and to his use of religion as a means of securing his political ends; that, though largely confined to the White House, he proved an effective and imaginative communicator; and that, though he made tactical mistakes, he got the big decisions right.

Lincoln, published by Longman in May 2003, RRP, £16.99.

Buy before March 31st for a 10% discount off the RRP!

For further information or to purchase click here.
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