Please join us at Roosevelt House for a special program exploring the political genius of Abraham Lincoln.

To mark the publication of his new book, A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1839, Sidney Blumenthal, former assistant and senior advisor to President Bill Clinton, and senior advisor to Hillary Clinton, will be in conversation with Harold Holzer, the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of Roosevelt House and winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for his book Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion.

A Self-Made Man, the first of a multi-volume biography, traces Lincoln's early years to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. Blumenthal argues that Lincoln’s anti-slavery thinking began in his childhood, and he describes an intensely ambitious and successful circuit lawyer who was also 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 argues, and he portrays Mary as an asset to her husband, a rare woman of her day with strong political opinions.

Sidney Blumenthal is the author of The Clinton Wars and other books. Harold Holzer is the author, co-author, or editor of 52 books on Lincoln and the Civil War era.