Reviews - And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

196 reviews for:

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

Jon Meacham

4.4 AVERAGE

kmuilen's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

sittingwishingreading's review against another edition

3.5

informative slow-paced

s_schreier's review against another edition

5.0

hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

ehstowe's review

4.0

Growing up in Huntsville (in the 21st century), my history classes definitely portrayed Lincoln and the Union as the “good side” of the Civil War, but it was still pretty socially accepted for people to be pro-Confederacy. They would say things like “the war wasn’t about race, it was about state’s rights” and “the South will rise again” (horrifying). Anyway, it was interesting learning more about that time period as an adult through this book, realizing the ways that the war was very much about slavery, but also that Abraham Lincoln and the Union were still pretty racist. John Meacham does a good job, I thought, balancing the ways that he fails to live up to our expectations of equality today while still recognizing the incredible progress he did contribute to. Interesting seeing the Kentucky connections and I’ll keep thinking about how impressive it is we had a presidential election in the middle of the Civil War.
This was a very slow read for me because it’s so long and also very much just straight history (I think I prefer my nonfiction books to have a little more reflection and new thoughts, and that was not this book’s style) but interesting. Read at Dad’s recommendation and he was right that there are scary parallels to today’s political climate. The storming the Capitol was especially alarming.