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Ways and Means
Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War

Winner of the Harold Holzer Lincoln Forum Book Prize

A revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history.

Lowenstein has delivered an outstanding contribution to the rich literature on the Civil War. . . . This volume will certainly rank as the classic treatment of the subject for a very long time to come.

Ron Chernow, author of Grant

Roger Lowenstein gives a gripping account of how Lincoln and his secretary of Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, successfully won the financial war against the South. It also tells the deeper story of how Lincoln forged a new economic union, even as he was remaking the political union. Ways and Means is a tour de force of narrative history that provides a novel and original perspective on our greatest President.

Liaquat Ahamed, author of Lords of Finance

In The Media

Ways and Means Featured in NY TImes Book Review Editors Choice

Roger in conversation with Harold Holtzer for Politics & Prose Live

Roger discusses Ways and Means with NPR's Steve Inskeep

Latest Reviews

Engaging history ... timely reading

The Economist

Nonfiction writing at its best

Robert S. Davis in the
New York Journal of Books

Lowenstein is a lucid stylist. . . . Ways and Means, an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives.

Eric Foner in the
New York Times

Captivating . . . Mr. Lowenstein makes what occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House.

Harold Holzer in the Wall Street Journal

enlightening work of economic history

Library Journal

His experience writing about financial matters . . . informs this fresh look at the president’s essential Republican roots as a self-made man, rather than slaveholder, and belief that anyone could be successful in America.

Kirkus Reviews

Masterful history . . . character-driven narrative . . . fascinating . . . this is a must-read for American history buffs.

Publishers Weekly

Lowenstein delivers a fine account of a crucial yet overlooked aspect of the American Civil War.

Booklist

About
Roger Lowenstein

Roger Lowenstein

Roger Lowenstein reported for The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, the Washington Post, Fortune, Atlantic, the New York Review of Books, and other publications. His books include the NYT bestsellers Buffett, When Genius Failed, and The End of Wall Street, and the critically acclaimed Origins of the Crash, While America Aged, and America’s Bank.