President vs. President: What History Can Teach Us About a Divided Country

Nigel Hamilton shares 5 key insights from Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents.

Well, it has come to pass: Trump 2.0 is upon us. And while we’re still waiting on a complete picture of what happened in the 2024 election, one thing is clear: the division in this country is stark. Don’t let anyone tell you, though, that it’s worse than it’s ever been, because that’s objectively false. After all, this is a nation that experienced a full-on Civil War, and as divisive as things seem now, we’re still (hopefully) a long way from secession and large-scale armed combat.

To keep that from happening, we’d do well to draw lessons from our history, so today we bring you some big ideas from Nigel Hamilton, author of the new book Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents. Nigel is a New York Times bestselling biographer and historian who’s written books about Presidents John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among other subjects. He has won the Whitbread Prize and the Templar Medal for Military History and the third volume of his FDR at War trilogy was long-listed for the National Book Award.

Scroll down to listen to Nigel’s key insights about the art of biography and what the next president can learn from the past.

The 5 Key Insights:

1. Originality in biography.

2. Why AI can never take biography from humans.

3. In thrall to the story.

4. The most significant of turning points.

5. The relevance of Lincoln vs Davis today.

Hear Nigel Hamilton share his key insights: