Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)"Look at me and I'll tell you without blinkin' this southerner prefers Abraham Lincoln"
goes a rap at the start of this book, and it is aimed at those of like mind, southerner or not.
A warning - half the book consists of illustrations of Lincolniana so that this is one for the specialist. The Lincoln- seeker should read David Donald's excellent biography before opening this book.
That said, does this book tell us anything new about Lincoln? The answer is yes, without being final or definitive. I liked particularly the article on Lincoln and the Constitution, showing that he was not the 'dictator' of Copperhead legend, nor the conscious revolutionary of Garry Wills' 'Lincoln at Gettysburg'. However, did his actions not have revolutionary results?
The article on the Lincoln marriage I felt a bit limited, but also a good corrective to the image of Lincoln the hen-pecked husband trapped in a loveless union. 'Mary, Mary, we are elected!" he cried to his wife on arriving home that great day, showing the essential nature of the partnership between them. However, this essay does not use Mariah Vance's remininscences, though written very much later that the 1850s, which show Mary Todd Lincoln as addicted to paregoric (which contained opium) and subject to alternating fits of drugged lassitiude, and withdrawal-induced sickness. However, even the Vance memoirs (she was the Lincoln's servant) are not entirely negative on Mary Lincoln.
Other essays cover the Lincoln youth, his fascination with death, his status as war leader and finally his image in American art. The enigma is somewhat clarified but somehow the enigma, and the continuing fascination, remains.
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