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A. Lincoln: A Biography Paperback – May 4, 2010
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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post • The Philadelphia Inquirer • The Christian Science Monitor • St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER AWARD
Everyone wants to define the man who signed his name “A. Lincoln.” In his lifetime and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves to characterize Lincoln according to their own label or libel. In this magnificent book, Ronald C. White, Jr., offers a fresh and compelling definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity–what today’s commentators would call “authenticity”–whose moral compass holds the key to understanding his life.
Through meticulous research of the newly completed Lincoln Legal Papers, as well as of recently discovered letters and photographs, White provides a portrait of Lincoln’s personal, political, and moral evolution. White shows us Lincoln as a man who would leave a trail of thoughts in his wake, jotting ideas on scraps of paper and filing them in his top hat or the bottom drawer of his desk; a country lawyer who asked questions in order to figure out his own thinking on an issue, as much as to argue the case; a hands-on commander in chief who, as soldiers and sailors watched in amazement, commandeered a boat and ordered an attack on Confederate shore batteries at the tip of the Virginia peninsula; a man who struggled with the immorality of slavery and as president acted publicly and privately to outlaw it forever; and finally, a president involved in a religious odyssey who wrote, for his own eyes only, a profound meditation on “the will of God” in the Civil War that would become the basis of his finest address.
Most enlightening, the Abraham Lincoln who comes into focus in this stellar narrative is a person of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, unafraid to “think anew and act anew.”
A transcendent, sweeping, passionately written biography that greatly expands our knowledge and understanding of its subject, A. Lincoln will engage a whole new generation of Americans. It is poised to shed a profound light on our greatest president just as America commemorates the bicentennial of his birth.
- Print length816 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House Trade Paperbacks
- Publication dateMay 4, 2010
- Dimensions6.09 x 1.67 x 9.21 inches
- ISBN-109780812975703
- ISBN-13978-0812975703
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Looking for a comprehensive birth-to-death bio? This is the answer.”—USA Today
“Does the world really need another Lincoln bio? White’s exhaustive yet accessible work tips the scales to yes.”—People
“This thoroughly researched book belongs on the A-list of major biographies of the tall Illinoisian; it’s a worthy companion for all who admire Lincoln’s prose and his ability to see into, and explain, America’s greatest crisis.”—The Washington Post Book World
“This brilliant account of the man and his times will be the standard for biographers.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“A page-turner . . . White has managed a complex narrative with the ease and zest of the novelist.”—The Buffalo News
“While this is a serious, weighty book, it’s also enormously readable, illuminating Lincoln’s intellectual prowess and personal magnetism in a way we’ve rarely seen before.”—Chicago Tribune (10 Top Books About Lincoln)
“Comprehensive . . . an admirable account of the life in full.”—Los Angeles Times
“A vivid and readable narrative . . . [White] is that rarity: a scholar who can tell a good story.”—The Miami Herald
“The torrent of Lincoln books past and present . . . means that the bar is necessarily set high. A. Lincoln . . . [is] among the most substantial new entrants.”—The Economist
“Impressive.”—U.S. News & World Report
“Comprehensive . . . Taking advantage of newly available resources . . . Mr. White delivers a strong narrative . . . [aimed] at the general reader.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Lincoln is endlessly chronicled because he is, like the nation he saved, endlessly fascinating. Ronald C. White has written a splendid, sprawling biography of a man we can never know too much about.”—Jon Meacham, author of Thomas Jefferson and American Lion
“Ronald C. White, an acknowledged expert on the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, has now taken in hand a full-length biography. To this task he brings the careful reading, patient attention to context, and special sensitivity to complex questions about Lincoln's religion that characterized his earlier books. The result is a first-rate study that will probably be THE biography of the Lincoln Bicentennial Year.”—Mark A. Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame
“Having given us two masterful studies of Lincoln's eloquence, Ronald C. White now delivers a riveting biography. This page-turner narrates all the major events of Lincoln's public career, including his military decision-making, but it does much more. No other book has so completely captured the elusive temperament of the man-- his humility and confidence, heart and intellect, religious spirit and secular sensibility. If you thought you knew Lincoln already, you'll know him better after reading this patient, probing work. A portrait for the ages.”—Richard Wightman Fox, Professor of History, University of Southern California
“Ron White’s A. Lincoln is a superb biography of America’s greatest leader. It is fully fleshed, thoughtful, provocative, and scholarly. Lincoln is never out of fashion. After a generation during which three comprehensive one-volume Lincoln biographies appeared—Benjamin P. Thomas’s Abraham Lincoln: A Biography in 1952; Stephen B. Oates’s With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln in 1977; and David Donald’s Lincoln in 1995—A. Lincoln: A Biography, with its rich detail, will be the standard text for years to come. The author includes the religious connections to his subject like no other biographer. This is a remarkable Lincoln biography by an outstanding writer.”—Frank J. Williams, Founding Chair of The Lincoln Forum and Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court
”Lincoln’s bicentennial will bring a flood of books about the sixteenth president. Anyone seeking an expansive, thoroughly engaging biography should turn to Ronald C. White’s gracefully written narrative. It does full justice to the complexity and drama of the era and allows readers to understand how Lincoln ultimately triumphed in guiding the nation through its greatest trial.”—Gary W. Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor of History, University of Virginia
“Ronald C. White’s A. Lincoln is the best biography of Lincoln since David Donald’s Lincoln. In many respects it is better than Donald’s biography, because it has incorporated the scholarship of the past fourteen years and is written in a fluent style that will appeal to a large range of general readers as well as Lincoln aficionados. The special strengths that lift this work above other biographies include a brilliant analysis of Lincoln’s principal speeches and writings, which were an important weapon in his political leadership and statesmanship, and on which Ronald C. White is the foremost expert, having written two major books on Lincoln’s speeches and writings. Another strength is White’s analysis of Lincoln's evolving religious convictions, which shaped the core of his effective leadership, his moral integrity. White’s discussion of Lincoln’s changing attitudes and policies with respect to slavery and race is also a key aspect of this biography. Amid all the books on Lincoln that will be published during the coming year, this one will stand out as one of the best.”—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
“A beautifully written, deeply personal story of Lincoln’s life and service to his country. Ronald C. White’s moving account is particularly strong in its analyses of Lincoln’s rhetoric and the process by which the president reached decisions.”—Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
“Each generation requires–and seems to inspire–its own masterly one-volume Lincoln biography, and scholar Ronald C. White has crowned the bicentennial year with an instant classic for the twenty-first century. Wise, scholarly, evenhanded, and elegant, the book at once informs and inspires, with a rewarding new emphasis on the complex meaning and timeless importance of Lincoln’s great words. Brimming with new anecdotes and informed interpretations, White’s superb study brings vivid new life to an American immortal.”—Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln: President-Elect, and co-chairman, Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A. Lincoln and the Promise of America
He signed his name "a. lincoln." a visitor to abraham lincoln's Springfield, Illinois, home at Eighth and Jackson would find "A. Lincoln" in silvered Roman characters affixed to an octagonal black plate on the front door. All through his life, people sought to complete the A-to define Lincoln, to label or libel him. Immediately after his death and continuing to the present, Americans have tried to explain the nation's most revered president. A. Lincoln continues to fascinate us because he eludes simple definitions and final judgments.
Tall, raw boned, and with an unruly shock of black hair, his appearance could not have been more different from that of George Washington and the other founding fathers. Walt Whitman, who saw the president regularly in Washington, D.C., wrote that Lincoln's face was "so awful ugly it becomes beautiful." But when Lincoln spoke, audiences forgot his appearance as they listened to his inspiring words.
He is one of the few Americans whose life and words bridge time. Illinois senator Everett Dirksen said fifty years ago, "The first task of every politician is to get right with Lincoln." At critical moments in our nation's history, his eloquent words become contemporary.
As a young man, he won the nickname "Honest Abe" when his store in New Salem, Illinois, "winked out." Rather than cut and run from his debts in the middle of the night, as was common on the frontier, he stayed and paid back what he called his "National Debt." His political opponents invented a long list of denunciations, ranging from "the Black Republican" to "the original gorilla" to "the dictator." His supporters crafted monikers of admiration: "Old Abe," affectionately attached to him while he was still a relatively young man, and the "Rail Splitter," to remind voters in the 1860 presidential campaign of his roots in what was then the Western frontier. During the Civil War, admiration became endearment when the soldiers he led as commander in chief called him "Father Abraham." After his controversial decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year's Day 1863, grateful Americans, black and white, honored him with the title "the Great Emancipator."
Each name became a signpost pointing to the ways Lincoln grew and changed through critical episodes in his life. Each was an attempt to define him, whether by characterization or caricature.
Yet how did Lincoln define himself? He never kept a diary. He wrote three brief autobiographical statements, one pointedly in the third person. As the Lincolns prepared to leave for Washington in the winter of 1861, Mary Lincoln, to protect her privacy, burned her correspondence with her husband in the alley behind their Springfield home. In an age when one did not tell all, Lincoln seldom shared his innermost feelings in public. Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, summed it up "He was the most shut-mouthed man that ever existed." Yet when Lincoln spoke, he offered some of the most inspiring words ever uttered on the meaning of America.
Each generation of Americans rightfully demands a new engagement with the past. Fresh questions are raised out of contemporary experiences. Does he deserve the title "the Great Emancipator"? Was Lincoln a racist? Did he invent, as some have charged, the authoritarian, imperial presidency? How did Lincoln reshape the modern role of commander in chief? How are we to understand Mary Lincoln and their marriage? What were Lincoln's religious beliefs? How did he connect religion to politics? As we peel back each layer of Lincoln's life, these questions foster only more questions.
Actually, Lincoln did keep a journal, but he never wrote in a single record book. What I call Lincoln's "diary" consists of hundreds of notes he composed for himself over his adult life. He recorded his ideas on scraps of paper, filing them in his top hat or his bottom desk drawer. He wrote them for his eyes only. These reflections bring into view a private Lincoln. They reveal a man of intellectual curiosity who was testing a wide range of ideas, puzzling out problems, constructing philosophical syllogisms, and sometimes disclosing his personal feelings. In these notes we find his evolving thoughts on slavery, his envy at the soaring career of Stephen Douglas, and the intellectual foundations of his Second Inaugural Address.
Lincoln's moral integrity is the strong trunk from which all the branches of his life grew. His integrity has many roots-in the soil, in Shakespeare, and in the Bible. Ambition was present almost from the beginning, and he had to learn to prune this branch that it not grow out of proportion in his life. Often, when contemporary Americans try to trace an inspired idea or a shimmering truth about our national identity, again and again we find Lincoln's initials carved on some tree-AL-for he was there before us.
Lincoln was always comfortable with ambiguity. In a private musing, he prefaced an affirmation, "I am almost ready to say this is probably true." The lawyer in Lincoln delighted in approaching a question or problem from as many sides as possible, helping him appreciate the views of others, even when those opinions opposed his own.
In an alternative life, Lincoln might have enjoyed a career as an actor in the Shakespearean plays he loved. As a lawyer, he became a lead actor on the stages of the courthouses of the Eighth Judicial Circuit of central Illinois. As president, he was a skillful director of a diverse cast of characters, civilian and military, many of whom often tried to upstage him. Although his military experience was limited to a few months in the Black Hawk War of 1832, Lincoln would become the nation's first true commander in chief, defining and shaping that position into what it is today.
Lincoln is the president who laughs with us. His winsome personality reveals itself in his self-deprecating humor. As a young lawyer and congressman, his satire could sting and hurt political foes, but later in life he demonstrated a more gentle sense of humor that traded on his keen sense of irony and paradox. During the Civil War, some politicians wondered how Lincoln could still laugh, but he appreciated that humor and tragedy, as portrayed in Shakespeare's plays, are always close companions.
Recently, the question has been asked with renewed intensity: What did Lincoln really believe about slavery? Born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and becoming a politician in Illinois, Lincoln answered this question differently in his developing engagement with slavery throughout his life. One of the reasons he hated slavery was because it denied the American right to rise to African-Americans. In debates with Stephen Douglas and conversations with African-American leader Frederick Douglass, Lincoln understood that in doing battle with slavery, he was wrestling with the soul of America.
Lincoln has often been portrayed as not religious, in part because he never joined a church. How to reconcile this, then, with the deep religious insights of his second inaugural address, given only weeks before his death? Where are the missing pieces in his spiritual odyssey? One clue is a private musing on the question of the activity of God in the Civil War found after his death by his young secretary, John Hay, in a bottom drawer of his desk. A second is a religious mentor in Washington who played a largely overlooked role in the story of Lincoln's evolving religious beliefs.
Lincoln would have relished each new advance in the information revolution. Before the modern press conference, he became skilled at shaping public opinion by courting powerful newspaper editors. During the Civil War he learned how to reach a large audience through the writing of "public letters." He understood the potential of the chattering new magnetic telegraph, which allowed him to instantly communicate with generals in the field and become a hands-on commander in chief. In the last year and a half of his life, he surprised members of his cabinet by accepting a clearly secondary role in the dedication at Gettysburg, only to deliver a mere 272 words that stirred a nation.
Even though we have no audio record of Lincoln's words, he still speaks to us through his expressive letters and his eloquent speeches. Lincoln may not have read the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric, but he embodied his definition that ethos, or "integrity," is the key to persuasion. Even when Lincoln disappears in his speeches-as he does in the Gettysburg Address, never using the word "I"-they reveal the moral center of the man.
Lincoln was conservative in temperament. As a young man he believed that the role of his generation was simply to "transmit" the values of the nation's founders. Over time he came to believe that each generation must redefine America in relation to the problems of its time. By the end of 1862, Lincoln would declare, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present." In the last two and a half years of his life, Lincoln began to think in the future tense: "We must think anew, and act anew." However one decides to define Lincoln, whatever questions one brings to his story, his life and ideas are a prism to America's past as well as to her future.
Product details
- ASIN : 0812975707
- Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks (May 4, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 816 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780812975703
- ISBN-13 : 978-0812975703
- Item Weight : 1.8 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.09 x 1.67 x 9.21 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #174,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #275 in United States Executive Government
- #542 in US Presidents
- #999 in Political Leader Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Ronald C. White is the New York Times best-selling author of the presidential biographies A. Lincoln: A Biography and American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant. USA Today said, “If you read one book on Lincoln, make it A. LINCOLN. His biography of Grant won the William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography.
White is also the author of Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural, honored as a New York Times Notable Book, and a Washington Post bestseller. The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words [2005], was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. White’s essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, and Harper’s. He has lectured at the White House and been interviewed on the PBS News Hour. He has spoken on Lincoln in England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and New Zealand.
He attended Northwestern University and is a graduate of UCLA and Princeton Theological Seminary, earning a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has taught at UCLA, Whitworth University, Colorado College, and Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a Reader at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum in Washington, D.C. He lives with his wife, Cynthia, in Pasadena, California.
White’s forthcoming books are Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President [May 4, 2021], and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: A Biography [2022], both to be published by Random House.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They appreciate the thorough research and insightful biography of Abraham Lincoln. The writing style is described as compelling and emotional. Readers describe Lincoln as a great man with principled and forgiving qualities. They appreciate the vivid presentation and realistic depiction of the US in the book.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They appreciate the detailed coverage of Lincoln's views on slavery. The biography is described as a quick, memorable read that provides valuable insights into the life of Abraham Lincoln.
"...The book is a delightful read...." Read more
"...So far, this has been an excellent read and I highly recommend it." Read more
"...anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth comes Ronald C. White's fabulous tome, A. Lincoln: A Biography...." Read more
"...assessments that recognize this as the best of the immediately contemporary books on Lincoln, that is in the domain of pure biography...." Read more
Customers find the biography insightful and well-written. They appreciate the detailed account of Lincoln's ancestry and early life. Readers enjoy the inclusion of quotes from Lincoln and the careful analysis of his major speeches. The book provides an updated look at his life, especially in light of the new information.
"...White provides for us a comprehensive look at his life. But the author also tries to define Lincoln through his words--both written and spoken...." Read more
"...It successfully captures the political and intellectual development of Lincoln and confirms my growing prejudice that Lincoln was the greatest..." Read more
"Well researched and written. Good insight into Lincoln’s psychological development and how he could convince others to see his point of view..." Read more
"...These self-reflective, highly personal notes let the reader get to know Lincoln and not just the mythic image...." Read more
Customers find the book's research insightful and thorough. They describe it as an informative and valuable guide to Abe Lincoln's life and legacy. The candid thoughts and attention to detail are appreciated.
"...There is also some interesting insight into how Lincoln grew into his role as commander in chief and finally learned how to manage generals who's..." Read more
"...Also, while this is a very comprehensive effort, one still has to realize that you won't find every single detail of Lincoln's life here...." Read more
"...this Lincoln biography after hearing for months how good and valuable a guide it was to the life and legacy of Lincoln...." Read more
"Well researched and written...." Read more
Customers praise the book's writing quality. They find the prose fluid and engaging, with a captivating narrative that is readable yet informative. Readers appreciate the author's skillful use of rhetorical and stylistic structures to craft the final speech. Overall, they describe the writing as compelling and emotional, making it a literary work of art.
"...I found this book easy to read (despite the English used in the 1800's)...." Read more
"...From the opening words of the first chapter, this book is a literary work of art. Lincoln signed all his papers with A. Lincoln...." Read more
"...I am grateful for White's well written and insightful biography...." Read more
"Well researched and written...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's character development. They find Lincoln a great man and a principled leader. The author brings out the human side of Lincoln well, making him seem more relatable than the mythical figure. The characters are described as real and alive, making the book a good way to learn about history.
"...a bit of a bumbling president and ended up becoming a formidable leader and commander-in-chief...." Read more
"...To me, the author brought out the human side of Lincoln quire well. He was a man with the foibles we all have and the struggles of mind and body...." Read more
"...Lincoln the lawyer is nicely portrayed. His profession enabled him to see the other point of view - a very useful trait for a politician...." Read more
"...the only book on Lincoln that one needs to read to appreciate this great man...." Read more
Customers find the book's presentation vivid and well-researched. They appreciate the illustrations, maps, signatures, and rich style of the old world pages. The realistic portrayal of the US and its troubles is painted in a realistic way. The portrait of Lincoln comes alive through the voices of those who had contact with him during his life.
"...It is made even more enjoyable by the dozens and dozens of photos, drawings, letters and maps that are scattered throughout...." Read more
"...The book is illustrated by pictures, signatures, maps etc...." Read more
"...IS THE BEST BIOGRAPHY ON LINCOLN,WRITTEN CONCISELY BUT IN A VERY ATTRACTIVE STYLE AND WILL PROBABLY TURN INTO A CLASSIC IN A SHORT TIME." Read more
"...Very long book, very detailed...but very much worth the read!" Read more
Customers appreciate Lincoln's honesty and integrity. They find the book a creative fusion of honesty and public presentation. Readers praise his humility, fortitude, kindness, compassion, and sound morality.
"...competing personalities, his purposeful and measured patience in dealing with multiple crises, and his ability to articulate the vision of the..." Read more
"...It was a creative fusion of honesty and public presentation. We desperately need to remember the person of Abraham Lincoln today...." Read more
"...Let those materials be molded into general intelligence, sound morality and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws...." Read more
"...The honesty, integrity, and adroitness with which Lincoln addresses the nation and its problems is as pertinent to our nation and world today as it..." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2020I thought I knew most of the facts about Abraham Lincoln's life. We were all taught about the self educated man who would walk miles to borrow and return books. The log splitter. who as a lawyer debate Stephen Douglas and then become president at the start of the civil war. He gave the Gettysburg's address and was murdered at the end of the civil war. Those facts are all correct, but there is so much more about Abraham Lincoln that I learned from this book.
He had very little formal schooling, but through self education became knowledge of a wide range of subjects. He struggled as a businessman but discovered that he was good a being a lawyer and flourished as a Lawyer. His was elected to state office and one term as a congressman. His early political career was anything but successful.
He came from a family tree that just kept moving west each chance they got. I was struck by the number of family members through-out his life that die from different diseases. It shaped him as a man.
I had not known about his failed courtships and how he finally married Mary Todd. I got a better understand of the impact on Mary when theire son died and how that impacted him.
He was a brilliant thinker and speaker. He became a spokesman for first the Whigs and then the newly formed Republican party. I learned that Lincoln sought out the best people to be in his cabinet - even if they weren't republicans or were former political rivals.
There is also some interesting insight into how Lincoln grew into his role as commander in chief and finally learned how to manage generals who's egos were bigger than their skills.
The book gave me a better understand of how Lincoln developed the emancipation proclamation against the backdrop of Union defeats and victories.
Lincoln is the type of leader you'd want in a crisis.
The book is a delightful read. I also listened to about a third of the book in my car and the narrator - Bill Weideman - has an easy to listen to voice.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2023The book arrived on time and in excellent condition. I found this book easy to read (despite the English used in the 1800's). I am now on page 508 (close to the end - page 676) and find MUCH that I didn't know - including how people lived in those times and how the country developed. I purchased this book to develop my own opinion of Lincoln with respect to slavery. I have a better perspective of how long this country has wrestled with the morality of slavery and the evolution of racism to the present day. I also have a better idea of what Lincoln thought of slavery and of Black people generally. It appears that those who said Lincoln was a 'racist' and those who said he was a savior of Black people were both right. One of my disappointments was that I did not find much in-depth information about the relationship between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and there is VERY LITTLE mention of Native Americans. (I guess I may come across both in another book.) So far, this has been an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2009Just in time for the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth comes Ronald C. White's fabulous tome, A. Lincoln: A Biography. From the opening words of the first chapter, this book is a literary work of art.
Lincoln signed all his papers with A. Lincoln. His friends called him simply Lincoln. "All through his life, people sought to complete the A--to define Lincoln, to label or libel him." For generations, "Americans have tried to explain the nation's most revered president." White provides for us a comprehensive look at his life. But the author also tries to define Lincoln through his words--both written and spoken. This job was made easier by the discovery of new Lincoln documents (especially legal documents) in recent years.
White begins Lincoln's journey with his humble birth, and takes us through his rustic childhood, his adventurous young adulthood, his awkward romantic experiences, his legal training, his circuit riding, political experiences and finally, his presidency. But what makes A. Lincoln so special is that White shows these events through the magnifying glass of Lincoln's writings. Whether it is a letter or a speech or just a note that Lincoln wrote to himself and stuffed in his silk top hat, White shows us how Lincoln evolved throughout his life to become one of our greatest leaders. The author also explains to us why Lincoln's writings are relevant today. "When contemporary Americans try to trace an inspired idea or a shimmering truth about our national identity, again and again we find Lincoln's initials carved on some tree--AL--for he was there before us." I had the pleasure of seeing Ronald White at the Free Library of Philadelphia recently. For his author talk, he passed out six different writings by Lincoln and analyzed them for us. But one gets the impression that White is just as much a lover of words, and of writing and a wordsmith as was Lincoln.
One section that I most enjoyed was how Lincoln started out as a bit of a bumbling president and ended up becoming a formidable leader and commander-in-chief. As in most everything, Lincoln was self-taught and once presented with a dilemma, went on a crash course to close the gaps in his meager education. The two major issues during his administration were the Civil War and the slavery issue. Halfway through his term, the president realized that he was not simply trying to preserve the Union, but to create a new Union. During the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln speaks of "a new birth of freedom" and a "new Union. The old union had attempted to contain slavery. The new Union would fulfill the promise of liberty."
A. Lincoln is just about as fine a biography as you could hope to read about Lincoln. It is made even more enjoyable by the dozens and dozens of photos, drawings, letters and maps that are scattered throughout. You can enjoy these things as you're reading--instead of having to keep leafing back and forth. Also, while this is a very comprehensive effort, one still has to realize that you won't find every single detail of Lincoln's life here. For instance, White treats Mary with sympathy and you won't find anything in his book about her apparent physical abuse of Lincoln. But overall, if you want the essence of the man, A. Lincoln will stand at the top of a very short list.
Top reviews from other countries
- geethasingarajuReviewed in India on May 25, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this first
What a book
- DavisReviewed in Australia on December 26, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Important to understand our history and world history.
V interesting reading about president lincoln. Esp after reading Hamilton.
- GurminderReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Immersive and superb - the best biography of Lincoln
This biography is as stunning as it is comprehensive. I have read a few books on Lincoln, but none come even close to this mighty tome in terms of details. The paperback is almost 700 pages long - and that's before you even get to the notes! The author has managed to capture almost every aspect of Lincoln's life - from his family heritage, growing up as a boy, an Illinois rail-splitter, becoming a lawyer and dabbling in politics right through to becoming President, and ultimately his assassination. Each chapter (almost books in their own right) chronologically cover Lincoln's life. No details are left out - the book is densely packed with just about every twist or turn, every offhand comment or speech, that Lincoln ever encountered or made. At times, I felt there was too much detail, partially because the list of characters is so involved; but this is very subjective and doesn't merit docking a star. The author deserves a huge amount of credit in compiling everything together in this single book.
It's an incredibly immersive book, and at times you feel like you're in the same room as Lincoln. The author touches on a number of aspects of Lincoln's life - namely his stance on slavery, religion, politics and also his writing. Lincoln's inclusive character also comes through. The author, however, doesn't spend much time covering Lincoln's relationship with his wife and children (they're more of a footnote compared with the coverage of politics). A little disappointingly, Lincoln's mood swings and his depression aren't covered - a shame as it would have given a little more context to this complex character.
If you're interested in politics and/or America history, this is an absolute must. Be warned, it's a big book and at times I did feel my eyes glazing over on the odd occasion. It's a very interesting factual book rather than a gripping page turner. However, credit (again) to the author for ensuring it didn't read like an academic paper or encyclopedia.
- MercheReviewed in Spain on April 13, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a "must" reading
An excellent one-volume biography of Lincoln, written in a clear, elegant style and concentrating on essentials. White is particular good on Lincoln the writer. I learned a lot from this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in Lincoln.
- DonReviewed in Canada on November 9, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful & Insightful!
This most readable biography is difficult to put down once one begins reading. Mr. White provides detail and analysis to those events and individuals in Lincoln's life that made the "man". Of interest is the complex relationship Lincoln has with spirituality and his choosing of a church to attend in Washington, as well as to whom he wrote regarding "discussion" about faith. Of note White emphasizes the evolving role of the presidency in the trying times in which Lincoln had to endure. Having visited Ford Theatre and the Peterson House earlier this year, this biography helped bring to life a man many can admire and learn from in today's trying political times.