Abraham Lincoln

McPherson fits A. Lincoln into 65 pages, covering all the main points. Rejecting backwoods life, preferring King James and Pilgrim's Progress, learns law, loses love, marries, fights mosquitoes, opposes war in Congress. Wins by losing to Douglas, addresses Cooper, wins presidency. Fort Sumter attacked, generals dither, proclaims emancipation, promotes fighter Grant, represses Copperheads, consecrates Gettysburg, wins war, is murdered, martyred, sainted. Now United States `is'.

Speaking as someone who admires Abraham Lincoln to a very deep degree, I found this small but powerful biography to be a beautiful addition to my collection of hefty Lincoln tomes. The book itself in hardcover is a joy to hold with its compact size, readable typeface and bound-in ribbon bookmark. Whoever worked on this project obviously did it as a labor of love. They worked the details on this one. You can't honestly compare this work to others like Carl Sandberg's "Lincoln" or "With Malice Towards None" or even my nice coffee table book of photographs taken of Lincoln. This work COMPLEMENTS those more comprehensive volumes. That said, it is not incomplete. It does an excellent job of hitting the hundreds of high - and low - points in Lincoln's too brief life. The pace moves quickly and precisely along so that you never have the feeling that you're being 'written down to' if that's the phrase I'm looking for. This one has NOT been dumbed down for the reader. Personally I see this smaller volume as an 'annual read' to remind me of just how special Lincoln was as a man and as our nation's leader. He was willing, even at great personal cost, to do the right thing on the toughest, most entrenched issues in our nation's history to that point. Through all that he had to work through, he never lost his sense of empathy towards all who were involved. He knew personally what it was like to lose in what he thought was a good cause. And I guess that's what stands out most about this very brief work. As you read along, you still get the sense of Lincoln as a man and as our finest President, and you do it in such a short time! What's that worth these days? This would make an ideal first book on Lincoln OR it would make a fine addition to a collection of works on Lincoln... and it won't take you four score and seven years to read it.

This is a very short book printed in large type on a topic that has been covered in hundreds of books. And it's a joy. It is the perfect stockng stuffer. It presents the full story of Lincoln's growth to leadership, the evolution of his beliefs and commitments, and his leadership as President. In general, this is achieved in such a short space and so vividly by letting Lincoln's own words -- speeches, letters, drafts -- do the work. They move the narrartive ahead while also bringing out his extraordinary and often breathtaking magnanimity, vision and tenacity. The compressed space shows better than most biographies the inner moral and political debate within hiself concerning slavery. Abolition and social justice were at his center, but he was also Presidential at the core, too; the slender narrative shows this aspect of honor and duty above self superbly. This book is a small marvel.

Many noted authors have written countless volumes about the life and times of Abraham Lincoln. When I read that Civil War historian James McPherson had attempted, in only 65 pages, to capture the essence of the man who shepherded our nation through its greatest trials I was curious to see how well he could do. I had my doubts at the first. When the first sentence starts out with "Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809..." I started to worry that there would be no more substance than a high school term paper. Fortunately, McPherson soon soothed my misgivings. After a somewhat dry synopsis of Lincoln's early life, McPherson briefly and with great insight touches on each and every key facet of Lincoln's career. He addressed the debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's election and subsequent efforts to prevent secession, his role in the war, his relationship with his cabinet, his personal and official views on slavery and emancipation, and his attempts to negotiate a peace with the Confederacy. In every chapter, McPherson's admiration for our sixteenth president shines through, even when discussing Lincoln's questionable suspension of habeas corpus. I found this part especially interesting in light of recent events. The Bush administration used the same arguments that Lincoln put forth to justify its suspension of civil liberties. One could argue that, justifiably or not, Lincoln opened a Pandora's Box that subsequent less-scrupulous presidents have taken advantage of. I have read a great deal about this period in history and yet, on a page-for-page basis, there are few books that can shed as much insight into the heart and mind of our greatest president. I highly recommend this book.

This delightful small volume from Oxford Press written by one of the eminent Civil War historians of our time pays tribute to Abraham Lincoln, the 16th and arguably most revered President of the United States of America. Every element of this book pays tribute to Lincoln, right down to its brevity, which echoes the terseness of the Gettysburg Address which itself lines the internal covers. This volume, timed to release with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Lincoln, couldn't be more timely as America welcomes it's 44th President and the first beneficiary of the office Lincoln held from those oppressed classes whom he freed. The timely reminder being that leadership can make a difference and can guide a nation at war and struggling with its identity. While that message can only be inferred and is a happy coincidence of timing, it is a timely message nonetheless and masterfully reflected in McPherson's brief book which can easily be read in one sitting. This is a worthy volume for anyone's library to return to for inspiration and a reminder of what made us great in the past in terms of vision and drive. There are certainly more thorough volumes to be read on Lincoln, but for catching the salient elements that arise time and time again to remind us of this great man, there are none better. 5 Stars Bart Breen