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Title details for Lincoln's Greatest Case by Brian McGinty - Available

Lincoln's Greatest Case

The River, The Bridge, and The Making of America

by Brian McGinty
Richard Poe
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available
Lincoln scholar Brian McGinty paints history on a grand scale as he re-creates a legal case that changed the face of a nation. Before becoming president, Abraham Lincoln successfully argued a trial pitting railroad vs. steamboat. In the course of this untold story, listeners follow the creation of a transnational railroad while witnessing the future president's ascension to the national stage.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 9, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781490658612
      • File size: 217953 KB
      • Duration: 07:34:04

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Richard Poe offers a solid and, at times, animated reading of this examination of one of Abraham Lincoln's more celebrated court cases. But Poe's presentation is uneven. He reads witness testimony with animation, as if he were portraying the witness himself in a play. It adds to the atmosphere nicely. But in the author's long expository sections--on topics such as the history of steamboats and railroads--Poe is more neutral and sometimes pauses overly long between sentences and phrases. The author uses those chapters to lengthen his look at a case that started with a steamboat crashing into a Mississippi River railroad bridge. A more evenly engaging performance would help listeners follow the material more easily. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 3, 2014
      Despite a subtitle that suggests excessive hype, McGinty (Lincoln and the Court) makes good on his promise to articulate why a now obscure 1857 trial had much broader significance than one would expect of legal battle over transportation. What came to be known as the Effie Afton case began with the crash of the steamboat of that name on the Mississippi River between Illinois and Iowa. While no one was injured, the collision with a railroad bridge destroyed the boat—which had been transporting cargo and freight valued at $350,000—and its owners sued the company responsible for the construction and placement of the bridge. Abraham Lincoln, who was already a well-regarded lawyer, was hired to assist with the defense. McGinty illuminates the case’s larger issues related to the conflict between two modes of commercial travel (by water and by rail), while also demonstrating how decisions concerning transportation had an impact on the simmering tensions between North and South over slavery shortly before the Civil War erupted. This is a masterful popular history that places its focal point in a richly detailed wider context and will get readers interested in Lincoln’s legal career.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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