LINCOLNOMICS

LINCOLNOMICS puts The Great Emancipator in his other rightful place as The Great Builder of the American economy, revealing Lincoln's untold legacy as an infrastructure advocate devoted to building an economic ladder to democracy for all through national transportation, public education, and market access.

The only biography of its kind, LINCOLNOMICS offers a fresh take on America's sixteenth president: exploring the foundational ideas and policies on infrastructure he rooted in society and government.

Lincoln's view that each person had a right to fulfill their economic destiny was at the core of his political philosophy - but he knew no one could climb that ladder without a strong federal government supporting commerce and transportation. Some of his most enduring policies came to him decades before the Civil War, visions of a country linked by railroads running ocean to ocean, canals turning small towns to bustling cities, bridging farmers to market.

Author John F. Wasik tracks Lincoln from his time as a young Illinois state legislator in the 1830s, pushing to create canals and internal improvements; through his work as a lawyer representing the Illinois Central Railroad in the 1840s; to his presidential fight for the Transcontinental Railroad. To Lincoln, infrastructure was a bigger concept than just the roads and bridges he had a hand in building. These bricks and mortar developments were essential elements of what the nation could become, lifting citizens above poverty and its isolating origins. LINCOLNOMICS revives the disremembered history of how Lincoln paved the way for Eisenhower's interstate highways, FDR's social amenities, and all those who would follow him in Washington, DC.

With an afterword addressing the failure of American infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how Lincoln's policies provide a guide to the future, LINCOLNOMICS makes the case for him as the Presidency's greatest builder.