内容简介
Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were thepreeminent self-made men of their time. In this masterful dualbiography, award-winning Harvard University scholar John Staufferdescribes the transformations in the lives of these two giantsduring a major shift in cultural history, when men rejected thestatus quo and embraced new ideals of personal liberty. As Douglassand Lincoln reinvented themselves and ultimately became friends,they transformed America.
Lincoln was born dirt poor, had less than one year of formalschooling, and became the nation's greatest president. Douglassspent the first twenty years of his life as a slave, had no formalschooling-in fact, his masters forbade him to read or write-andbecame one of the nation's greatest writers and activists, as wellas a spellbinding orator and messenger of audacious hope, thepioneer who blazed the path traveled by future African-Americanleaders.
At a time when most whites would not let a black man cross theirthreshold, Lincoln invited Douglass into the White House. Lincolnrecognized that he needed Douglass to help him destroy theConfederacy and preserve the Union; Douglass realized thatLincoln's shrewd sense of public opinion would serve his own goalof freeing the nation's blacks. Their relationship shifted inresponse to the country's debate over slavery, abolition, andemancipation.
Lincoln was born dirt poor, had less than one year of formalschooling, and became the nation's greatest president. Douglassspent the first twenty years of his life as a slave, had no formalschooling-in fact, his masters forbade him to read or write-andbecame one of the nation's greatest writers and activists, as wellas a spellbinding orator and messenger of audacious hope, thepioneer who blazed the path traveled by future African-Americanleaders.
At a time when most whites would not let a black man cross theirthreshold, Lincoln invited Douglass into the White House. Lincolnrecognized that he needed Douglass to help him destroy theConfederacy and preserve the Union; Douglass realized thatLincoln's shrewd sense of public opinion would serve his own goalof freeing the nation's blacks. Their relationship shifted inresponse to the country's debate over slavery, abolition, andemancipation.