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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I don't think I'll be able to finish this one. The author is laying bare his biased opinion of Lincoln (and other earlier American politicians) often ascribing a modern American Christian sensibility to them, and assuming that the evidence he presents concerning their general skepticism regarding religion must be wrong. The author can't seem to grasp that men like Lincoln, or Jefferson, for that matter, whom he discusses in the book as well, were not the devout Christians that he so badly wants for them to be. This biased perception taints his writing and makes his prose and philosophical meanderings difficult to read if you as a reader aren't already on board with the "America is a Christian Nation" malarky.
The path of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency is well-trod. Throughout the Civil War and in the 160 years since, much ink has been spilled in the fight to vilify or deify him. Were his actions the result of cold calculation, or a sign of his pure goodness? Meacham’s biography does its best to thread the needle between these dichotomies. The truth of Lincoln’s character lies somewhere in the middle, influenced by his understanding of faith and morality as well as the realities of the world in which he lived.
I love reading about Abraham Lincoln. He was a complicated person with complicated feelings who led the country through its most complicated season. And There Was Light is an impeccably detailed study of a man who was shaped by the time in which he lived, but was open enough to imagine and move his country toward a world in which good was possible.
Add this to your TBR if you enjoy history, character studies, and hard truths.
I love reading about Abraham Lincoln. He was a complicated person with complicated feelings who led the country through its most complicated season. And There Was Light is an impeccably detailed study of a man who was shaped by the time in which he lived, but was open enough to imagine and move his country toward a world in which good was possible.
Add this to your TBR if you enjoy history, character studies, and hard truths.
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Meacham demonstrates, overtly and through subtle demonstration, the parallels between the American Struggle of the Civil War and today. Bravo.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Meacham is such a wonderful biographer and finds a variety of ways to interpret the life of someone everyone seems to know so well. He is not the plaster saint he is universally revered but a flesh and blood mortal. Oh, that we had such a man today!
💭 "The legitimate object of government is 'to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.'" • Abraham Lincoln
Meacham gives us both a full biography and a crafted thesis. He constructs the bio from close reading: occasionally Lincoln's own words but moreso his contemporaries, the texts he might have consulted, the sermons he would have heard, the Biblical tales he referenced. The author quotes from the historical record at length. And I get that Lincoln is possibly the most interesting to hold the job and certainly the one over whom people have spilled the most ink but ... tbh, this could have been a shorter book.
I'm more interested in Meacham's arguments for Lincoln as a morally driven actor. He triangulates the concept morality: rooted in Christianity, democratic principles and economic egalitarianism. On this side of the textual project, the author is insistent, repetitive, even preachy. I think much of his reasoning is sound. For example, in the second half of the book, he makes compelling comparisons between politicos who lean toward the Declaration of Independence (early, lofty, headier, less well-defined) and those who lean on the Constitution (codified compromises, practical to guide implementation). Yet some of the assertions of supposedly deeply embedded and felt religious allusions, grounded in just a few words (sometimes one!) ... felt stretched. The direct closing comparisons to Jesus and MLK, Jr. ... seem hyperbolic.
I wish the historian has dealt more seriously with Lincoln's apparent inability to envision, let alone move toward, Black *social and political* equality. (The president could grasp basic labor equality and often repeated that workers should enjoy the fruits of their own efforts. He also conceded, halfway through the war, that Black people's wartime skills, or at least able bodies, would affirm his aims while undermining those of the Secesh. But he endorsed a cut-and-run approach to a post-manumission Union: 'Free Black people,' as a collective noun, as a politically enfranchised reality, confounded his imagination.)
I only knew of Lincoln what everyone does, what you learn in school. There are other (maybe "better") biographies of Lincoln out there. But what drew me to this one was the premise of seeing the man behind the legend, seeing how he tried to act in ways that were in line with his beliefs, but also growing as a person. One of my favorite quotes, and a reminder to us all as we head into election season: "In life, Lincoln's motives were moral as well as political— a reminder that our finest presidents are those committed to bringing a flawed nation closer to the light, a mission that requires an understanding that politics divorced from conscience is fatal to the American experiment in liberty under law... Lincoln's life shows us that progress can be made by fallible and fallen presidents and peoples— which, in a fallible and fallen world, should give us hope" (419-420).