_A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849_ (2016) is the first of a multi-volume history of Lincoln as a political genius - from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, his assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. In this first volume, which he discusses at Harvard Book Store, **Sidney Blumenthal** traces Lincoln from his painful youth to his emergence as the man we know as Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery thinking began in his childhood amidst the Primitive Baptist antislavery dissidents in backwoods Kentucky and Indiana, the roots of his repudiation of Southern Christian pro-slavery theology. Intensely ambitious, he held political aspirations from his earliest years. Obsessed with Stephen Douglas, his political rival, he battled him for decades. Successful as a circuit lawyer, Lincoln built his team of loyalists. Blumenthal reveals how Douglas and Jefferson Davis acting together made possible Lincoln’s rise. While depicting the successful politician, Blumenthal also describes a socially awkward suitor who had a nervous breakdown over his inability to deal with the opposite sex. Lincoln's marriage to the upper-class Mary Todd was crucial to his social aspirations and his political career. Blumenthal portrays Mary as an asset to her husband, a rare woman of her day with strong political opinions. Blumenthal's robust portrayal is based on prodigious research of Lincoln's record and of the period and its main players. The book reflects both Lincoln's time and the struggle that consumes our own political debate. (Photo: Ian Manka (Own work) [[CC BY 3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 "CC License")], via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_Home.jpg "Lincoln Home"), image cropped) By Ian Manka (Contact me at the English Wikipedia, en:User:IanManka) (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons