Washoe County Library System

Documents the violence that sometimes marked legislative sessions in the decades before the American Civil War, detailing acts of physical fighting, duels, and mortal threats over disagreements about key issues, particularly slavery.

A compelling new biography of America's most powerful Speaker of the House, who held the divided nation together for three decades and who was Lincoln's guiding light.

Describes the life of the American statesman and political theorist who served as Vice President under John Quincy Adams and argued in favor of slavery and laid the groundwork for the South to secede the Union.

Roberts examines the financial, political, and social upheavals that occurred in the United States in the decade following the Panic of 1837, which he calls the First Great Depression. The years leading up to the panic, he says, were a time of boom marked by geographic expansion, the near elimination of the national debt, states borrowing large sums for improvement projects, and land values that appeared to be rising without end. He explains that...

In All the Powers of Earth, Lincoln's incredible ascent to power in a world of chaos is newly revealed through the great biographer's extraordinary research and literary style. After a period of depression that he would ever find his way to greatness, Lincoln takes on the most powerful demagogue in the country, Stephen Douglas, in the debates for a senate seat. He sidelines the frontrunner William Seward, a former governor and senator for New York,...

"The first of a multi-volume history of Lincoln as a political genius--from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as 'a slave,' to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. From his youth as a 'newsboy,' a voracious newspaper reader, Lincoln became a free thinker, reading Tom...