The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment, Allen C. Guelzo

Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment

Allen C. Guelzo

An intimate study of Abraham Lincoln's powerful vision of democracy, which guided him through the Civil War and is still relevant today--by a best-selling historian and three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize

*Winner of the 2024 Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Prize*
*Finalist for the 2025 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize*

"It is altogether fitting and proper that, with this meditation on democracy and its most subtle defender, Allen Guelzo again demonstrates that he is today's most profound interpreter of this nation's history and significance." --George F. Will

Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment, and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know less about Lincoln's penetrating ideas and beliefs about democracy, which were every bit as important as his character in sustaining him through the crisis.

Allen C. Guelzo, one of America's foremost experts on Lincoln, captures the president's firmly held belief that democracy was the greatest political achievement in human history. He shows how Lincoln's deep commitment to the balance between majority and minority rule enabled him to stand firm against secession while also committing the Union to reconciliation rather than recrimination in the aftermath of war. In bringing his subject to life as a rigorous and visionary thinker, Guelzo assesses Lincoln's actions on civil liberties and his views on race, and explains why his vision for the role of government would have made him a pivotal president even if there had been no Civil War. Our Ancient Faith gives us a deeper understanding of this endlessly fascinating man and shows how his ideas are still sharp and relevant more than 150 years later.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
  • Publish Date: Feb 6th, 2024
  • Pages: 272
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.40in - 5.90in - 1.20in - 0.90lb
  • EAN: 9780593534441
  • Categories: United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877)American Government - GeneralPresidents & Heads of State

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Grant, Ron Chernow
Book Cover for: Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington, Ted Widmer
Book Cover for: The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896, Richard White
Book Cover for: The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, Eric Foner
Book Cover for: The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Robert S. Levine
Book Cover for: The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America, Edward L. Ayers
Book Cover for: Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War, Roger Lowenstein
Book Cover for: The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, Megan Kate Nelson
Book Cover for: Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary, Walter Stahr
Book Cover for: American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873, Alan Taylor
Book Cover for: The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson
Book Cover for: Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War, S. C. Gwynne
Book Cover for: A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House, Jonathan W. White
Book Cover for: The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution, James Oakes
Book Cover for: Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union, Richard Kreitner

About the Author

ALLEN C. GUELZO is Senior Research Scholar at the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of several books about the Civil War and early-nineteenth-century American history. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History and has been awarded the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize three times. He lives in Pennsylvania.

More books by Allen C. Guelzo

Book Cover for: Voices from Gettysburg: Letters, Papers, and Memoirs from the Greatest Battle of the Civil War, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Robert E. Lee: A Life, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War & Reconstruction, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Reconstruction: A Concise History, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Edition: Redeemer President, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Reconstruction: A Very Short Introduction, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Redeeming the Great Emancipator, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: The New England Theology, Douglas A. Sweeney
Book Cover for: Edwards on the Will, Allen C. Guelzo
Book Cover for: The Golden Thread: The Ancient World and Christendom, James Hankins
Book Cover for: The Golden Thread: The Modern and Contemporary West, Allen C. Guelzo

Praise for this book

"Guelzo looks to the 19th century to identify the challenges of sustaining a free society. He argues compellingly that Abraham Lincoln, who fought to defend the American republic against autocratic forces in the South while restricting civil liberties in the North, can help us figure out how to strike a balance." --Parker Henry, The New York Times

"Brim[s] with worthy insights and well-selected quotations . . . Writing in the shadow of what he knows are despairing political times--the brink of a presidential contest that few seem to want--Allen Guelzo offers us the solace of Abraham Lincoln's belief in democracy . . . Thus his gift to readers: 'I offer this man's example.'" --Roger Lowenstein, The Wall Street Journal

"It is impossible to read Our Ancient Faith without feeling that Guelzo wrote this book as much for himself as for us, to fortify himself for the 2024 election battle to come; and to share an illuminating and ennobling story with a people short on hope and--just as important and just as troubling--perspective." --David Shirbman, The Boston Globe

"As the subject of thousands of studies, Lincoln is one of American history's most written-about individuals. It is therefore a welcome surprise to read such fresh insights as Guelzo musters here . . . In an era when democracy's death is shouted from the front page of seemingly every U.S. newspaper, it is comforting to read that Abraham Lincoln, at least, thought the effort to maintain it was not in vain." --Booklist

"Here is a penetrating look at both the seeds of American democracy and their greatest cultivator." --The New Criterion

"Shines a new light on Lincoln's powerful vision for true democracy." --Washington Examiner

"Remarkably compact and accessible . . . sees Lincoln's attributes as well as his shortcomings as clearly as anyone I have ever read on the subject." --California Review of Books

"The best picture we have of Lincoln's views on democracy, [from] our finest living historian of Lincoln and the Civil War." --Steven B. Smith, American Political Thought