The transatlantic slave trade played a major role in the development of the modern world. It both gave birth to and resulted from the shift from feudalism into the European Commercial Revolution. James A. Rawley fills a scholarly gap in the historical discussion of the slave trade from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century by providing one volume covering the economics, demography, epidemiology, and politics of the trade. This revised edition of Rawley's classic, produced with the assistance of Stephen D. Behrendt, includes emended text to reflect the major changes in historiography;...

Abraham Lincoln "was a tall, spare man, with large bones, and towering up to six feet and four inches. He leaned forward, and stooped as he walked. . . . There was no grace in his movements, but an expression of awkwardness, combined with force and vigor. By nature he was diffident, and when in crowds, not speaking and conscious of being observed, he seemed to shrink with bashfulness. . . . His forehead was broad and high, his hair was rather stiff and coarse, and nearly black, his eye-brows heavy, his eyes dark grey, clear, very expressive, and varying with every mood, now sparkling with...

As the Civil War raged, President Abraham Lincoln spent many hours in the War Department s telegraph office, where he received all his telegrams. Morning, noon, and night Lincoln would visit the small office to receive the latest news from the armies at the front. The place was a refuge for the president, who waited for incoming dispatches and talked while they were being deciphered.David Homer Bates, one of the first military telegraphers, recollects those presidential visits during times of crisis. Lincoln in the Telegraph Office, originally published in 1907, shows history in the...

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons. And yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which, I am not quite satisfied with you. With this opening sentence in a two-page letter from Abraham Lincoln, Union general Joseph Hooker (1814 79) gained a prominent place in Civil War history. Hooker assumed command of an army demoralized by defeat and diminished by desertion. Acting swiftly, the general reorganized his army, routed corruption among quartermasters, improved food...

When President-elect Abraham Lincoln was preparing to go to Washington he appealed to his old friend and law partner Ward Hill Lamon: I want you to go along with me. . . . In fact I must have you. So get yourself ready and come along. Lamon journeyed from Springfield to Washington in 1861 and returned to Illinois in mourning in 1865. Lincoln chose Lamon as his bodyguard when he slipped into Washington by night to foil conspirators intent on murder. The president sent him on missions and appointed him marshal of the District of Columbia. During that time of civil war Lincoln was often...

Race and Politics offers an analysis of the controversies that followed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The question of whether the still unsettled Kansas Territory should be slave or free divided the nation into hostile and ultimately irreconcilable camps, creating conditions that only civil war could resolve. The author demonstrates, however, that the fundamental issue was not slavery as such but race: whether the country, its egalitarian slogans notwithstanding, could tolerate the expansion of African Americans, slave or free. "Rawley in his introduction, a semi-apologia, questions...

The best general account of politics in the North, as David Herbert Donald calls this book, is also the first one-volume history of its subject. Abraham Lincoln s single goal of saving the Union required not simply subduing the South but contending as well with divisiveness in the North with refractory state officials, draft resisters, peace advocates, secret organizations, with Northern Democrats (too often seen only as Copperheads or as traitors to the Union), and with powerful Republicans who often vocally disagreed with Lincoln s policies. In this account, Radical Republicans represent...

The many sides of Abraham Lincoln-war leader, humorist, commander in chief, politician, and emancipator-are vividly depicted in this concise and fresh look at his presidential years. Pivotal events, decisions, and issues in Lincoln's private and public life are scrutinized and explained clearly by noted historian James A. Rawley. During an innovative yet bloody era marked by mass communication, unheard-of national recognition and media attention, and the increasingly destructive uses of technology to wage war, Lincoln did all that he could to preserve the nation as a whole. Principles...

The transatlantic slave trade played a major role in the development of the modern world. It both gave birth to and resulted from the shift from feudalism into the European Commercial Revolution. James A. Rawley fills a scholarly gap in the historical discussion of the slave trade from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century by providing one volume covering the economics, demography, epidemiology, and politics of the trade. This revised edition of Rawley's classic, produced with the assistance of Stephen D. Behrendt, includes emended text to reflect the major changes in historiography;...

The words of Abraham Lincoln have been immortalized in speeches and enshrined in policies and practices, and none of those words, spoken or written, has gone unnoticed or wanted for a response. It is this broader context the wider conversation about Lincoln s words that this book discusses. The final project of James A. Rawley, a preeminent historian of the Civil War era, A Lincoln Dialogue cross-examines Lincoln s major statements, papers, and initiatives in light of the comments and criticism of his supporters and detractors.
Drawn from letters and newspapers, pamphlets and...