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ncrabb's review
3.0
These are lectures that were once delivered at Gettysburg College and they deal with various aspects of Lincoln’s presidency. I think my favorite was Schlesinger’s essay comparing Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both took huge constitutional liberties, and neither knew the outcome of their various endeavors at the outset of the conflicts over which they presided.
There’s one essay in here that compares Lincoln’s efforts to the unification of Germany back in the 1800s, and that one frankly kind of bored me and made me think that it was quite a stretch trying to compare the 19th-century unification of Germany to the healing and reunification of a broken United States. Another essay focused on Lincoln's transition from opposing war in his younger years to ultimately supporting the nion cause. McPherson's essay on Lincoln as a brilliant national strategist was well worth the read.
You’ll want to take your time and read and ponder these essays. They’re thoughtfully enough written that you won’t just blow through them like hot butter and get anything out of them. This book actually has some relevance today, since you hear people like Texas Governor Rick Perry talking about secession even now. One of the essayists points out that it would be much harder for a state to secede as a result of Lincoln’s presidency. The essay postulated that prior to the civil war, there was no real sense of union among the states. If such a feeling existed at all, it was strongest in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania and weakest in the South. Lincoln insisted that he would save the union either with or without slavery if he could, and that his main goal was ultimately to save the union.
Of course, all of these essays reflect the writing style of their various authors, and none of them are so dry and horrific that you’ll want to skip them. Ready for some opinions on Lincoln, the War President as delivered by scholars who have studied his works in detail and write well? This might well be the book for you.
There’s one essay in here that compares Lincoln’s efforts to the unification of Germany back in the 1800s, and that one frankly kind of bored me and made me think that it was quite a stretch trying to compare the 19th-century unification of Germany to the healing and reunification of a broken United States. Another essay focused on Lincoln's transition from opposing war in his younger years to ultimately supporting the nion cause. McPherson's essay on Lincoln as a brilliant national strategist was well worth the read.
You’ll want to take your time and read and ponder these essays. They’re thoughtfully enough written that you won’t just blow through them like hot butter and get anything out of them. This book actually has some relevance today, since you hear people like Texas Governor Rick Perry talking about secession even now. One of the essayists points out that it would be much harder for a state to secede as a result of Lincoln’s presidency. The essay postulated that prior to the civil war, there was no real sense of union among the states. If such a feeling existed at all, it was strongest in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania and weakest in the South. Lincoln insisted that he would save the union either with or without slavery if he could, and that his main goal was ultimately to save the union.
Of course, all of these essays reflect the writing style of their various authors, and none of them are so dry and horrific that you’ll want to skip them. Ready for some opinions on Lincoln, the War President as delivered by scholars who have studied his works in detail and write well? This might well be the book for you.
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