---
product_id: 3685549
title: "Lincoln"
brand: "david herbert donald"
price: "140 zł"
currency: PLN
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.pl/products/3685549-lincoln
store_origin: PL
region: Poland
---

# Pulitzer Prize-winning biography In-depth legal & political analysis Detailed historical timeline Lincoln

**Brand:** david herbert donald
**Price:** 140 zł
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Summary

> 📖 Unlock the real Lincoln: leadership, legacy, and lessons that shaped a nation.

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Lincoln by david herbert donald
- **How much does it cost?** 140 zł with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pl](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/3685549-lincoln)

## Best For

- david herbert donald enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted david herbert donald brand quality
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## Key Features

- • **Rich Personal Portrait:** Discover the man behind the myth—his struggles, losses, and growth.
- • **Masterclass in Leadership:** Explore Lincoln’s evolution from humble origins to moral presidency.
- • **Complex Political Navigation:** Witness the art of balancing factions in a divided nation.
- • **Unfiltered Historical Insight:** Experience Lincoln’s decisions as he faced them—no hindsight bias.
- • **Critically Acclaimed Bestseller:** Join thousands who rate this definitive Lincoln biography 4.6/5 stars.

## Overview

David Herbert Donald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography 'Lincoln' offers a masterful, nuanced portrait of America’s 16th president. Combining rigorous historical research with vivid storytelling, it reveals Lincoln’s personal growth, political challenges, and moral leadership during the Civil War. Praised for its clarity and depth, this bestseller ranks top in Civil War and political history categories, making it essential reading for history enthusiasts and professionals alike.

## Description

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of We Are Lincoln Men comes a stunning portrait of Abraham Lincoln’s life and presidency.
“A book of investigative tenacity, interpretive boldness and almost acrobatic balance” (
The Chicago Tribune
), Lincoln brilliantly depicts Abraham Lincoln’s gradual ascent from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to the ever-expanding political circles in Illinois, and finally to the presidency of a country divided by civil war. Pulitzer Prize winner David Herbert Donald goes beyond biography, illuminating the gradual development of Lincoln’s character, chronicling his tremendous capacity for evolution and growth, thus illustrating what made it possible for a man so inexperienced and so unprepared for the presidency to become a great moral leader. In the most troubled of times, here was a man who led the country out of slavery and preserved a shattered Union—in short, one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Dimensions | 6.13 x 1.3 x 9.25 inches |
| Edition | First Edition |
| Isbn 10 | 068482535X |
| Isbn 13 | 978-0684825359 |
| Item Weight | 1.85 pounds |
| Language | English |
| Print Length | 720 pages |
| Publication Date | November 5, 1996 |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |

## Images

![Lincoln - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81PA7DSsgCL.jpg)

## Available Options

This product comes in different **Format** options.

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Donald's biography is a masterful telling of the life of one of our greatest presidents
*by  on Reviewed in the United States October 20, 2011*

David Herbert Donald's 1996 biography Lincoln has been called the best single volume Lincoln biography of the period. Though this is my first Lincoln bio, I'd be surprised to read a better. Donald does a fantastic job of making Lincoln come alive and allowing the reader to join the 16th president on the amazing journey that was his life.Donald's framing device is that the reader is presented with the information Lincoln knew at the time. This reduces the frequent historical tendency to second guess the subject, and allows you to more easily see things from Lincoln's point of view when he was weighing his decisions. A significant example of this is that the reader is not taken to any Civil War battlefields as bullets fly, but instead joins Lincoln in pacing the War Department telegraph office waiting for news, writing to McClellan urging him to make a move, or visiting Grant as he makes his plans for the final push. It's a simple but powerful biographical technique, and Donald does it very well.The book is split roughly evenly between Lincoln's pre-presidential life and his presidential service. Donald's coverage of Lincoln's early life is very interesting, effectively conveying Lincoln's poor origins and his varied early careers. His legal career is particularly well-covered, with interesting examples from his law practice demonstrated by specific cases he argued. His private life is also chronicled well, with his early romantic interests and courtship of Mary Todd all receiving their due attention. Lincoln's early political career is fascinating, as he moves from the disintegrating Whig party in helping form the new Republican party.Once the presidential years begin, the focus naturally shifts to Lincoln's execution of his public duties. As expected based on his premise, Donald doesn't focus on the battlefields or the goings on of the South, instead doing an excellent job of showing the juggling act Lincoln had to perform with the various Northern factions - Radical Republicans, Conservative Republicans, War Democrats, Peace Democrats; abolitionists, western states, border slave-holding states; incompetent generals, more incompetent generals, and finally Grant. Donald's presentation of Lincoln's masterful navigating of these difficult waters truly gives the reader a great appreciation for the challenges Lincoln overcame in holding the Union together. Donald does still touch upon Lincoln's personal life during these years, including difficulties regarding Mary, and the devastating loss of their son Willie.As I finished the book, I realized that, even knowing all along how it sadly must end, Donald had brought me so close to Lincoln that it touched me personally, as if I myself had lost a friend or mentor. I can only thank Donald for making that possible for someone almost a century and a half gone.I absolutely recommend Donald's Lincoln to anyone with an interest in American history. It is simply a masterfully told story of one of the most important people in American history at the most important Post-Revolution crossroads in American history.I was so impressed with this book that I plan to read Donald's Charles Sumner and the Coming of the American Civil War, which won the Pulitzer Prize and covers the radical abolitionist senator that was a leading voice during the Civil War, and who makes many appearances in Lincoln. I also plan to read other well-regarded single volume biographies of Lincoln, including Abraham Lincoln: A Biography by Benjamin P. Thomas (1952), With Malice Towards None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen B. Oates (1977), and A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. White, Jr. (2009), each of which was heralded as the best Lincoln biography of their time. While I can't expect them to top Donald, I am eager to learn more about Lincoln, including how he's been viewed over the years.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Lincoln the man, not the myth
*by  on Reviewed in the United States April 6, 2005*

David Herbert Donald accomplishes with this biography the difficult goal of presenting Lincoln as a character at once thoroughly ordinary and exceptional. Although millions of words have been written about his subject, Lincoln remains shrouded in myth for many of us, but a reading of this fine biography parts those mists and reveals that the sixteenth president is not difficult to understand or relate to, onerous as his burdens may have been to bear.Donald's prose is as plain-spoken as the words favored by Lincoln, but that is not to say that it is ordinary. On the contrary: Donald's mastery of his subject allows him to write with exceptional clarity and admirable dispassion.While it is clear that on balance Donald greatly admires Lincoln, he never glorifies him. He is critical, for example, of Lincoln the Whig's occasional taste for demagogery in his partisan attacks on the rival Democratic Party early in his political career. In analyzing Lincoln's writings and speeches, he doesn't shy away from pointing out flaws and speciousness in their reasoning.The book is also valuable for its ability to present landmarks in Lincoln's career in a clearer light. The best example of this is the recounting of the famous series of debates in pursuit of a Senate seat between Lincoln and his primary rival of the time, Stephen Douglas. History, particularly as it is taught in high school, often presents these debates as lofty philosophical interchanges between the two on slavery, individual rights and the nature of liberty. Donald's careful analysis of each of the seven debates shows that while they contained moments of high drama and keen insight, they were all dragged down by petty attacks -- on both sides -- repetitive arguments and occasional poorly prepared remarks.Similarly, Donald points out a fact that is often forgotten: while Lincoln deplored slavery on moral grounds, he never believed that African-Americans were the equal of whites on any level. In fact, the author is quite critical of Lincoln's stubborn adherence to the idea that blacks could be relocated to Africa -- one that he held on to far longer than it merited, if indeed it ever did.The most intriguing and insightful portions of the book center on Lincoln's presidency, for which he was wholly unprepared, by his own admission. While many of us are aware in a general sense that Lincoln was under great pressure during his first term as a wartime president, Donald dramatizes the difficulties in great detail, bringing to life the nearly unbearable weight that Lincoln bore in trying to juggle the demands of a highly disputatious cabinet, a stubbornly unresponsive military leadership, and a Republican Party that was in many cases more hostile to him than were the Democrats.Lincoln's final success in bringing the war to a successful conclusion -- albeit at staggering human and financial cost -- is all the more satisfying and poignant for Donald's attention to the four years of disappointments. With the description of his death and the knowledge of the unfinished business that awaited his second term in rebuilding the nation, one is left to ponder more than ever what might have been had he not been assassinated.As a finely drawn portrait reveals something of its subject's inner life, "Lincoln," through its meticulous attention to detail, gives the reader a greater understanding of the man than any mere collection of facts could ever provide. Highly recommended.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good but details don’t discriminate
*by  on Reviewed in the United States February 24, 2025*

There’s a lot in there, but when you give nearly the same page cover to the Gettysburg address as you do to Lincoln’s struggle to find a good postmaster general, you’re raising (or lowering) all details to have a similar value; for me, too much on the minutia and not enough on the on the value of certain aspects of his life. It warns you in the introduction that there’s not a clear value placed on things, and it delivered on that promise. Valuable from the details perspective, but not my favorite bio.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Lincoln
- Washington : A Life
- Grant

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*Last updated: 2026-08-20*