Murder on the Mississippi - by Saladin Ambar (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Murder, mob rule, and the making of Abraham Lincoln--the story of three racially motivated murders in Mississippi River towns from 1835 to 1838 that inspired the speech that put Lincoln on the national map--the Lyceum Address.

Lynched: Five white gamblers suspected of aiding a slave insurrection in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Burned Alive: A Black man implicated in the death of a constable in St. Louis, Missouri.
Gunned Down: A white abolitionist in Alton, Illinois.

These weren't just acts of mob violence--they were warnings of a nation on the edge of collapse.

In Murder on the Mississippi, award-winning historian Saladin Ambar unearths the horrors that shaped a young Abraham Lincoln's worldview, pushing him to find his political voice in one of the earliest and most pivotal speeches of his career. Confronted by lawlessness, racial terror, and his own inner demons, Lincoln's battle was political and deeply personal.

Amid the string of murders on the American frontier, Lincoln faced the loss of his first love--and a descent into suicidal despair. Yet from this darkness, he emerged with a renewed purpose, one that would define his leadership in the fight for democracy, human freedom, and the rule of law.

From the flames of mob violence rose a young Lincoln, forged in fire and soon to contend with a nation at war with itself.

Review Quotes

Praise for Murder on the Mississippi

"Strikes a chord in our own divisive times. . . . expertly parses and reinterprets. . . . A fresh and bracing analysis . . . of the address in the context of 1838. . . . Ambar does not spare us the horrifying details of each brutal mob act. . . . The future president's first major speech has become . . . an organic reference point in modern political discourse. In this important work, Ambar has produced the first--and most nuanced--book-length treatment of that oration."
--Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal

"Invigorating... A trenchant study of [the] episodes of racially motivated brutality that inspired the speech that catapulted 28-year-old Abraham Lincoln to national prominence.... Ambar threads together a vivid psychological profile of a young Lincoln, the harrowing stories of the victims, and parallels to present-day politics."
--Publishers Weekly

"Locates the roots of Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery views in . . . violence, which often targeted Blacks free and enslaved, prostitutes, and white gamblers, all subject to 'creeping mob violence.' . . . A fresh investigation of antebellum politics and the era's foremost champion of equality before the law."
--Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Malcolm X at Oxford Union

"An essential companion to 1963's 'Message to the Grassroots' or 1964's 'The Ballot or the Bullet' in any assessment of Malcolm X as a political thinker and activist."
--Publishers Weekly

"Saladin Ambar writes of the impact Malcolm had on his generation of young black males who 'took on new names' if not because of Malcolm, then at least with his ghostly assistance. . . . Many of us made knowing Malcolm a kind of vocation. Malcolm X at Oxford Union is a testament to the depth of that vocation."
--Jason Berry, America magazine

Praise for Stars and Shadows

"A searching history of interracial friendship and cooperation throughout American history."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Ambar's lucid history lessons and spirit of optimism make this an enlightening study of how racial progress is made."
--Publishers Weekly

"This beautifully written historical meditation on the powers of friendship is an extended reflection about meaningful connections that span America's racial borderlands. Stars and Shadows . . . probes often surprisingly resonant relations, taking in the personal and the political in a democratic zone marked by affection and regard."
--Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of political science and history, Columbia University

"A fresh, wise, humane antidote to the political bombast of our time. Ambar brilliantly explores the way Americans have bonded across the racial divide from Thomas Jefferson to Angela Davis. Stars and Shadows is deeply researched, beautifully written, and genuinely moving."
--James A. Morone, John Hazen White Professor, Brown University, and author of The Republic of Wrath: How American Politics Turned Tribal from George Washington to Donald Trump

"Saladin Ambar offers the rare combination of a gifted storyteller . . . and a penetrating scholar of politics. . . . This book is an urgent and extremely enjoyable read."
--Elizabeth F. Cohen, Professor of political science, Syracuse University

"Professor Ambar skillfully challenges readers to place the role of intra-racial political fraternity at the heart of American democracy. . . . This book is engaging, beautifully written, and thoroughly researched."
--Nadia Brown, Professor of government and director of women's and gender studies program at Georgetown University

About the Author

Saladin Ambar is Professor of Political Science and Senior Scholar at the Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics. He is the winner of the Association of American Publishers' PROSE Best Book Award in Government and Politics for Stars and Shadows: The Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama, and his Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era is in development for a feature film. He is Co-Director of the Democracy Committee for New Jersey's Reparations Council and was a contributor for the Lincoln Presidential Foundation's docuseries on the Lyceum Address. He hosts the podcast "This Moment in Democracy" and has been a fact-checker and contributor for the Smithsonian Channel, CNN's Race for the White House, and PBS's MetroFocus. He is the father of teenaged triplets and lives in Philadelphia.