Sidney Blumenthal, "All the Powers of the Earth"

Sidney Blumenthal discusses his book, "All the Powers of the Earth", at Politics and Prose.

Blumenthal, a former Washington Post reporter and esteemed political advisor, opened his magisterial Political Life of Abraham Lincoln series with A Self-Made Man, a detailed portrait of the future president as a young lawyer. The second volume, Wrestling with His Angel, focused on Lincoln’s political coming-of-age between 1849 and 1856. The third volume begins with Lincoln’s election to the presidency and follows some of his most challenging and brilliant moments as a statesman, from his refusal to compromise during the secession crisis and his creation of the Union Army, to his political struggles with the Radical Republicans in Congress and his deliberation over the Emancipation Proclamation.

Blumenthal is in conversation with Sean Wilentz, author most recently of No Property in Man.

Sidney Blumenthal is the acclaimed author of A Self-Made Man and Wrestling with His Angel, the first two volumes in his five-volume biography, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln. He is the former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton. He has been a national staff reporter for The Washington Post and Washington editor and writer for The New Yorker. His books include the bestselling The Clinton Wars, The Rise of the Counter-Establishment, and The Permanent Campaign. Born and raised in Illinois, he lives in Washington, D.C.

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Produced by Tom Warren