"Abe immerses the reader in the isolating poverty and frontier violence that shaped Abraham Lincoln's character. Marked by the death of his beloved mother and the struggle to keep reading and learning in the face of his father's fierce disapproval, Abe perseveres, growing into the man who changed the course of American history.".

"Richard Slotkin's Abe draws deeply on historical scholarship, but it is not biography. Instead, it is a vivid, persuasive re-creation of the life as young Lincoln might have lived it, and of the people, scenes, and influences that helped produce the character and conscience of the man often called the greatest of all Americans."--BOOK JACKET.