Talks & Entertainment

In And There Was Light, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and #1 New York Times bestselling author chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America.

A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists showed no mercy in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. Meacham’s illuminating new portrait tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in an antislavery Baptist community to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination: his rise, self-education, loves, bouts of depression, political failures, deepening faith, and persistent conviction that slavery must end.

In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln’s story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.

Jon Meacham will be in conversation with Clint Smith, a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller How the Word is Passed.