technicat reviewed One Man Great Enough by John C. Waugh
good bio that paints a picture of his life until his election and in parallel the divisions that led to the Civil War
I've been reading presidential bios for a while (including Hamilton, before it was a musical) but lately it seems I've been reading a lot about Lincoln and Washington. The ones on Washington tend to focus on the Revolution, while in contrast the Lincoln assortment I've read focus on different time spans - the Civil War, his election, and in the case of this book, his early life up until his election, so there's some overlap but different emphasis and detail. The author is a bit unsparing when it comes to describing appearances (Lincoln is not exempt, in fact he probably gets the worst of it with a lot of men and women on the record describing him as homely, ungainly, etc. and this was before social media), but he does paint a picture, and this is probably the best bio I can remember that gives you a feeling of his …
I've been reading presidential bios for a while (including Hamilton, before it was a musical) but lately it seems I've been reading a lot about Lincoln and Washington. The ones on Washington tend to focus on the Revolution, while in contrast the Lincoln assortment I've read focus on different time spans - the Civil War, his election, and in the case of this book, his early life up until his election, so there's some overlap but different emphasis and detail. The author is a bit unsparing when it comes to describing appearances (Lincoln is not exempt, in fact he probably gets the worst of it with a lot of men and women on the record describing him as homely, ungainly, etc. and this was before social media), but he does paint a picture, and this is probably the best bio I can remember that gives you a feeling of his personality (if he were here today he'd probably be taking antidepressants).
The book also makes starkly clear what I hope is not a spoiler, what led to the Civil War was slavery, not states rights (contrary to the Iowa high school essay that I'm embarrassed I wrote back in the day based on whatever resource I found in the school library - see this is where it would've been nice if a teacher said nice writing but you got it all wrong), but with a lot of additional context, Lincoln's anti-slavery arguments, the range from politicians who just didn't mind slavery, whatever keeps the union together, and those who really wanted any excuse to split and were trying to assassinate Lincoln even before he took office. And with movement names like the Know Nothings and the Wide Awakes, current times just seem like a remake.