Lincoln at Cooper Union, Harold Holzer
Lincoln at Cooper Union, Harold Holzer
List: $20.95 | Sale: $14.66
Club: $10.47

Lincoln at Cooper Union
The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President

Author: Harold Holzer

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Unabridged: 10 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook (DRM Protected)

Published: 04/26/2011

Synopsis

Lincoln at Cooper Union explores Lincoln’s most influential and widely reported pre-presidential address—an extraordinary appeal by the western politician to the eastern elite that propelled him toward the Republican nomination for president. Delivered in New York in February 1860, the Cooper Union speech dispelled doubts about Lincoln’s suitability for the presidency and reassured conservatives of his moderation while reaffirming his opposition to slavery to Republican progressives.Award-winning Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer places Lincoln and his speech in the context of the times—an era of racism, politicized journalism, and public oratory as entertainment—and shows how the candidate framed the speech as an opportunity to continue his famous “debates” with his archrival Democrat Stephen A. Douglas on the question of slavery.Holzer describes the enormous risk Lincoln took by appearing in New York, where he exposed himself to the country’s most critical audience and took on Republican Senator William Henry Seward of New York, the front-runner, in his own backyard. Then he recounts a brilliant and innovative public relations campaign, as Lincoln took the speech “on the road” in his successful quest for the presidency.

About Harold Holzer

Harold Holzer has authored, coauthored, and edited more than thirty books on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. He serves as chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, and is a Roger Hertog Fellow at the New York Historical Society. Currently he is senior vice president for external affairs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and lives in Rye, New York.

About Mark Bramhall

Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their “Best Voices of the Year.” He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bill on May 01, 2022

This succinct book was a surprisingly enjoyable five-star read for me, not necessarily because it rocked my world or was the greatest thing about Abraham Lincoln ever written, but because it accomplishes so well what it sets out to do, and exceeds expectations in the process. In telling the story of......more

Goodreads review by robin on June 23, 2024

The Cooper Union Address In October, 1859, a small group of young Republican leaders in New York City invited Abraham Lincoln to give an address at Henry Beecher's church in Brooklyn on a subject of Lincoln's choosing. At the time, Lincoln was heavily involved in helping Republican Congressional cand......more

Goodreads review by Porter on December 15, 2022

I've put off reading this book for a while. I know a lot about Lincoln, the Civil War is one of *MY* niches. If you study the Civil War or Lincoln, then you know that Cooper Union was a pivotal point in his career. Any biogphay on his life or coverage of the period mentions Cooper Union. Other books......more

Goodreads review by Jim on December 14, 2023

I think that I have read more books about Lincoln and the Civil War period than just about any other topic and that is since I was a kid reading the Chicago Tribune with its daily article about what had happened 100 years before...this was during the Civil War Centennial of 1961-65! So this is yet a......more

Goodreads review by Joe on December 04, 2013

A few months back I had finished Harold Holzer's "Lincoln: President-Elect" and therefore anticipated another five stars. I was not disappointed. If I were to read these two books again however, I would read this book first. Lately, I have been trying to better familiarize myself with some of the mos......more

Quotes

“Lincoln said that his speech at Cooper Union in New York on February 27, 1860, made him president. In this definitive account, Harold Holzer shows how and why that was true. Long overshadowed by other famous Lincoln speeches, the Cooper Union address is now finally getting the attention it deserves as a pivotal event in American history.” James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

“Lincoln of myth is a simple and plainspoken fellow. The real Lincoln was the master of a calculated rhetoric. There is no better proof of that important fact than Harold Holzer’s important book.” Garry Wills, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

“Few people know more about Abraham Lincoln than Holzer. This fine new work focuses on a widely known but little studied address that Lincoln delivered early in 1860 in New York City…Surely no one will again overlook this masterful speech.” Publishers Weekly

“This book is a must for anyone fascinated by Abraham Lincoln.” Civil War Times

“An engrossing account…stimulating and pleasurable.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Lincoln at Cooper Union is the most interesting and important book on the sixteenth president published in years. Its richly detailed account of Lincoln’s visit to New York in 1860 is as absorbing as any novel, and its close analysis of Lincoln’s Cooper Union address adds significantly to our understanding of his political philosophy. I recommend it enthusiastically.” David Herbert Donald, author of Lincoln

“An excellent contribution to Lincolnalia.” Booklist

“It required someone with Harold Holzer’s combination of knowledge, experience, and talent to capture the speech’s unique complexity and profundity…All of this is brought to readers with meticulous historic precision, fascinating insight, and charmingly facile prose.” Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York

“Holzer’s research is prodigious…Although Holzer is an unabashed (even effervescent) advocate for Lincoln—and for the significance of this speech—he also is careful to analyze the architecture and rhetoric of the remarks and to puncture some puffballs that have grown in the yard of Lincoln Legends…The enthusiasm is infectious.” Kirkus Reviews

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List