Paul M. Zall - Böcker

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This volume explores Abraham Lincoln’s ties to the American West, bringing together a variety of scholars and experts who offer a look at the sixteenth president’s legacy in the territory beyond the Mississippi River. Included in this collection are an examination of Lincoln’s opposition to the Mexican War; a discussion of antislavery politics as applied to the West; perspectives on Lincoln’s views on the Thirteenth Amendment and his reluctance to admit Nevada to the Union; a look at the impact of the Radical Republicans on Lincoln’s patronage and appointments; and discussion of Lincoln’s favorable treatment of New Mexico and Arizona in an effort to garner their loyalty to the Union. Also analyzed is “The Tribe of Abraham”—Lincoln’s less-than-competent appointments in Washington Territory—and the ways in which Lincoln’s political friends in the Western Territories influenced his western policies. Other essays look at Lincoln’s dealings with the Mormons of Utah, who supported the president in exchange for his tolerance, and Native Americans, whose relations with the government suffered as the president’s attention was consumed by the Civil War. Loaded with a wealth of information, Lincoln Looks West explores yet another dimension to this dynamic leader and to the history of the American West.

A new and more complex portrait of Thomas Jefferson, as told by Jefferson himself. Not trusting biographers with his story and frustrated by his friends' failure to justify his role in the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson wrote his autobiography on his own terms at the age of seventy-seven. The resulting book ends, well before his death, with his return from France at the age of forty-six. Asked for additional details concerning his life, Jefferson often claimed to have a "decayed memory." Fortunately, this shrewd politician, philosopher, architect, inventor, farmer, and scientist penned nearly eighteen thousand letters in his lifetime, saving almost every scrap he wrote.In Jefferson on Jefferson, Paul Zall returns to original manuscripts and correspondence for a new view of the statesman's life. He extends the story where Jefferson left off, weaving excerpts from other writings -- notes, rough drafts, and private correspondence -- with passages from the original autobiography. Jefferson reveals his grief over the death of his daughter, details his hotly contested election against John Adams (decided by the House of Representatives), expresses his thoughts on religion, and tells of life at Monticello.

For most Americans, George Washington is more of a legend than a man -- a face on our currency or an austere figure standing in a rowboat crossing the icy Delaware River. He was equally revered in his own time. At the helm of a country born of idealism and revolution, Washington reluctantly played the role of demigod that the new nation required -- a role reconciling the rhetoric of democracy with the ritual of monarchy. Washington quickly understood that every decision he made as president would be analyzed, criticized, and emulated. "There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent," he said. In his own words, Washington describes himself as a poor orator and an uncomfortable leader, a man more at ease in his private gardens than at the center of America's trust and adoration. Plagued by doubts about his education and abilities, Washington developed self-discipline that to others seemed superhuman.Washington on Washington offers a fresh and human perspective on this enigmatic figure in American history. Drawing on diary entries, journals, letters, and authentic interviews, Paul M. Zall presents the autobiography that Washington never lived to write, revealing new insights into his character, both personal and political.

After more than two hundred years in the shadows of Washington and Jefferson, John Adams enjoys fame as one of our top presidents. Of unprepossessing appearance and feisty temperament, he expressed his personal feelings in copious correspondence and public documents along with two unfinished autobiographies.Paul M. Zall draws from Adams's own letters, diaries, notes and autobiographies to create a fresh portrait. Adams's writings, both public and private, trace his rise from country lawyer to the nation's highest office by the sheer force of his personality. Lacking the advantages of money, connections, class, or patronage, Adams used "the severest and most incessant labor" to promote American independence. Zall's commentary illuminates Adams's words, focusing on how Adams's inner strengths -- in conflict with a sense of inferiority and an obsession with fame -- helped win government under law at home and national respect abroad. Borne along by an irresistible sense of Spartan duty and refusing to compromise high principles for cheap popularity, he sacrificed family, fortune, and even fame. In Adams on Adams we are at last able to hear Adams describe his extraordinary journey in his own words.

Though Abraham Lincoln has been the subject of numerous biographies, his personality remains an enigma. During his lifetime, Lincoln prepared two sketches of his life for the 1860 presidential race. These brief campaign portraits serve as the core around which Paul Zall weaves extracts from correspondence, speeches, and interviews to produce an in-depth biography. Lincoln's writing about himself offers a window into the soul and mind of one of America's greatest president. His words reveal an emotional evolution typically submerged in political biographies. Lincoln on Lincoln shows a man struggling to reconcile personal ambition and civic virtue, conscience and Constitution, and ultimately the will of God and the will of the people. Zall frames Lincoln's words with his own illuminating commentary, providing a continuous, compelling narrative. Beginning with Lincoln's thoughts on his parents, the story moves though his youth and early successes and failures in law and politics, and culminates in his clashes and conflicts--internal as well as external--as president of a divided country. Through his writings, Lincoln said much more about himself than is commonly recognized, and Zall uses this material to create a unique portrait of this pivotal figure.

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died. Those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs, yet instead of including them in his memoir, Franklin spent the years continually revising his original text. Paul Zall has created a new autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception of him as a crafty "Man of Reason." His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought.