A. LINCOLN If you read one book about Lincoln, make it A. Lincoln.”USA TodayNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Washington Post  The Philadelphia Inquirer  The Christian Science Monitor  St. Louis Post-Dispatch. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER AWARDEveryone wants to define the man who signed his name A. Lincoln. In his lifetime  and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves to characterize Lincoln  according to their own label or libel. In this magnificent book, Ronald C. White,  Jr., offers a fresh and compelling definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity“what  todays commentators would call authenticity“whose moral compass holds the key  to understanding his life.  Through meticulous research of the newly completed Lincoln  Legal Papers, as well as of recently discovered letters and photographs, White provides  a portrait of Lincolns personal, political, and moral evolution. White shows us  Lincoln as a man who would leave a trail of thoughts in his wake, jotting ideas on  scraps of paper and filing them in his top hat or the bottom drawer of his desk;  a country lawyer who asked questions in order to figure out his own thinking on an  issue, as much as to argue the case; a hands-on commander in chief who, as soldiers  and sailors watched in amazement, commandeered a boat and ordered an attack on Confederate  shore batteries at the tip of the Virginia peninsula; a man who struggled with the  immorality of slavery and as president acted publicly and privately to outlaw it  forever; and finally, a president involved in a religious odyssey who wrote, for  his own eyes only, a profound meditation on the will of God in the Civil War that  would become the basis of his finest address.  Most enlightening, the Abraham Lincoln  who comes into focus in this stellar narrative is a person of intellectual curiosity,  comfortable with ambiguity, unafraid to think anew and act anew.   A transcendent,  sweeping, passionately written biography that greatly expands our knowledge and understanding  of its subject, A. Lincoln will engage a whole new generation of Americans.  It is  poised to shed a profound light on our greatest president just as America commemorates  the bicentennial of his birth.