I it's Diane. On my mind, what the era of Lincoln can teach us about politics today,

as divisions in the country have deepened, many have left to the time of the Civil War

for lessons on how to move forward. Pulitzer prize winning by Angerifer and historian John

Nietzsche does just that in his new book titled, And There Was Light. In it, he chronicles

the light for Abraham Lincoln, tracing evolution of both his moral principles and his political

leadership. I talked to him about the state of our democracy in the 1800s and today. I

hope you enjoy the conversation. John, tell us why Lincoln so much has been written about

him, so many books, why him and why now. You've answered the question yourself. What

I wanted to do was explain why he did what he did. I believe that I have a pretty good

understanding and I think most of the folks who we know are probably as weird as we are

and they have a sense of how he did what he did. I was curious about the why, particularly

in an hour of crisis in democratic institutions that we are living in now. A lot of, you know,

it's been said that biographers always tend to actually write about themselves consciously

or unconsciously, historians consciously or unconsciously are writing about their

fear. We can debate that. But I self-consciously was writing in this moment for in the service

of trying to figure out what it was that made this particularly unremarkable, seemingly

unremarkable frontier politician, the savior of American democracy. The why comes down

to his moral commitment ultimately. I think for biographers, actually Lincoln is a little

like Everest. You should try to climb him once. I don't think there is such a thing as

a definitive biography. Books can be authoritative, but not necessarily definitive because people

are people. I just wanted to offer my view of Lincoln. Certainly one central portion of

the book and perhaps indeed the entire book relates to Lincoln's conscience and how it

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