Giants: The parallel Lives of Fredrick Douglas and Abraham Licolin by John Stauffer Arabic version
Douglass and Lincoln were the preeminent self-made men of their time. In this masterful dual biography, the first to view the two great leaders as self-made men, Stauffer describes the transformations in the lives of these giants during a major shift in cultural history, when men rejected the status quo and embraced new ideals of personal liberty.
As Douglass and Lincoln reinvented themselves and became friends, they transformed America. Lincoln was born dirt poor, had less than one year of formal schooling, and became the nation's greatest president. Douglass spent the first 20 years of his life as a slave, had no formal schooling, and became one of the nation's greatest writers and activists. At a time when most whites would not let a black man cross their threshold, Lincoln invited Douglass into the White House. Lincoln recognized that he needed Douglass to help him destroy the Confederacy and preserve the Union; Douglass realized that Lincoln's shrewd sense of public opinion would serve his own goal of freeing the slaves. Their relationship shifted in response to the debate over slavery and emancipation. Stauffer describes their personal and political struggles with a keen understanding of the dilemmas they confronted and the social context in which they occurred. What emerges is a brilliant portrait of how two of America's greatest leaders lived.
