Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln

The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-231-17132-8
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 626 g

In the spring of 1837, a "long, gawky, ugly, shapeless man" walked into Joshua Speed's dry-goods store and asked for supplies for a bed. He couldn't afford the price, but Speed was taken with the visitor, who "threw such charm around him" and betrayed a "perfect naturalness." "He could act no part but his own," Speed later wrote. "He copied no one either in manner or style." So Speed suggested the young lawyer stay with him in a room over his store for free, initiating what would become one of the most important friendships in American history.

Speed was Abraham Lincoln's closest confidant, offering this shy and anxious political talent invaluable support after the death of his first love, Ann Rutledge, and during his rocky courtship of Mary Ann Todd. Lincoln returned repeatedly to Speed for guidance even though the two disagreed on political matters. Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln is a rich analysis of a relationship that was both a model of male friendship and a specific dynamic between two brilliant but fascinatingly flawed men who played off each other's strengths and weaknesses to launch themselves in love and life. Their friendship resolves important questions about Lincoln's early years and adds significant psychological depth to his later decisions as husband, war leader, and president.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Strozier, Charles B.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Biographien & Autobiographien: Historisch, Politisch, Militärisch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsA Note on Sources1. Beginnings2. Two Friends, One Bed3. Friendship4. Depression5. Sex and Prostitution6. Broken Engagement7. The Winter of Discontent8. Kentucky Bluegrass9. Homeward Bound10. A Vicarious Romance11. Mary Todd, Once Again12. The Crucible of GreatnessConclusions: On FriendshipList of AbbreviationsNotesIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Charles B. Strozier, a historian and psychoanalyst, is a professor of history at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, and faculty, training, and supervising analyst at TRISP in New York City. His books include Lincoln's Quest for Union: Public and Private Meanings and Until the Fires Stopped Burning: 9/11 and New York City in the Words and Experiences of Survivors and Witnesses.