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Fred Kaplan

Biography

Fred Kaplan

Fred Kaplan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of LINCOLN: The Biography of a Writer, which was named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times and Washington Post, among other publications. His biography of Thomas Carlyle was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Maine.

Fred Kaplan

Books by Fred Kaplan

Lincoln and the Abolitionists: John Quincy Adams, Slavery, and the Civil War
by Fred Kaplan - History, Nonfiction

Abraham Lincoln was shaped by the values of the white America into which he was born. While he viewed slavery as a moral crime abhorrent to American principles, he disapproved of anti-slavery activists. Until the last year of his life, he advocated "voluntary deportation," concerned that free blacks in a white society would result in centuries of conflict. In 1861, he had reluctantly taken the nation to war to save it. While this devastating struggle would preserve the Union, it would also abolish slavery --- creating the biracial democracy Lincoln feared. John Quincy Adams, 40 years earlier, was convinced that only a civil war would end slavery and preserve the Union. An antislavery activist, he had concluded that a multiracial America was inevitable.

John Quincy Adams: American Visionary
by Fred Kaplan - Biography, History, Nonfiction

Fred Kaplan brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams --- the little known and much misunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams --- and persuasively demonstrates how Adams's inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America.