Founders’ Son

"[Brookhiser's] melding of Lincoln with the founders yields significant implications for the interpretation of the American past--in both the Revolutionary and Civil War eras."

"Beautifully written and choked with insights.... For Brookhiser, Lincoln's life was an encounter with a succession of fathers: his own, the Founding Fathers, and God the father. Can it be only a coincidence that in time he himself was regarded as Father Abraham?"

"Mr. Brookhiser positions Lincoln as the self-conscious heir of the 18th-century Founders and thus fends off the claim (made in the fever swamps of both left and right) that Lincoln subverted the Constitution in the interests of creating an all-powerful central government."

"Brookhiser has done the seemingly impossible: He has written a life of Lincoln that is fresh, original, and ideal for those new to the subject.... With deft, epigrammatic phrases Brookhiser distills Lincoln's life to its essence."

"Since he is well-chronicled, and often mythologized, it is hard to expand our understanding of Lincoln. But Richard Brookhiser does an expert job of finding new room."

"Founders' Son is not just another Lincoln biography (more than 15,000 have already been published). Instead, it is a chronicle of Lincoln's mental and spiritual evolution, much of it written in his own words; indeed, Abraham Lincoln has almost all the best lines."

"Abraham Lincoln is the most written-about man in American history, yet Richard Brookhiser, a historian and writer of extraordinary talent, has written an analysis that is lively, incisive, novel--and brilliant. This book reminds us of Lincoln's reverence for the Founders, his 'stubborn concern for first principles' and--ultimately--the often-overlooked reverence for the Almighty God that guided him in America's darkest hours."

"With characteristic elegance and economy, Richard Brookhiser demonstrates that Lincoln assured America a future by reconnecting the nation with its past. With, that is, the world-shaking egalitarianism of the Founders' natural-rights doctrine. Hence this book is--whether Brookhiser meant so or not--a primer on the great topic of present-day politics, the relevance of the Declaration of Independence as a manifesto for limited government."