Publisher, BBC Audiobooks America (January 2009)

NOTE: RETAIL EDITIONS are packaged in attractive, compact cardboard, jewel-case or DVD shrink-wrapped cases, with full-color art.

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"David Strathairn (Lincoln) and Richard Dreyfuss (Douglas) do an excellent job acting out these historic meetings...they successfully mimic the speaking patterns and pacing unique to orators of that era...Strathairn and Dreyfuss reconstruct the passion and lively repartee that characterized their confrontations." --AudioFile Magazine

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, seven legendary meetings between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during their 1858 senatorial campaign in Illinois, made history, and changed its course as well. On the 150th anniversary of these epic battles, BBC Audio is proud to present a newly commissioned recording of the debates, starring David Strathairn as Lincoln and Richard Dreyfuss as Douglas. The debates were the culmination of a political rivalry that had its origin twenty-five years before, when Lincoln and Douglas were aspiring politicians in the Illinois legislature. A main theme was slavery and its expansion into the western territories. Douglas argued for the concept of popular sovereignty, with the people of each territory deciding the slavery question for themselves. But in Lincoln’s view, this approach would nationalize and perpetuate slavery. Though Douglas won re-election to the Senate, Lincoln’s gift for oratory and his anti-slavery stance in the debates made him a nationally known ....

About the Narrators: Richard Dreyfuss is a renowned Academy Award Winning actor whose 40 year film career includes American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Mr. Holland's Opus, and many more.

Actor David Strathairn was nominated for an Oscar for his 2005 performance as famed CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, David Strathairn is known for memorable performances in stage and screen roles.