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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
DNF on 200 page - too many quotes. The book doesn’t flow well and as I was not very familiar with this part of history, I had to research too many events and people to understand it better.
Probably the best bio of Lincoln I have read. Deals with his history from a moral/ethical framework. Delves deeply into his spirituality -- that is, his faith. There is so much of legend in the tales of Lincoln both as a religious man and as an agnostic. Meachum looks at he reality of both and grounds his story of Lincoln's personal ethics and faith in primary sources, and illuminates an area few scholars have ever properly emphasized. We also see how this sense of deeply personal ethics and faith shape Lincoln's political philosophy, particularly regarding the hot issue of slavery, his commitment to the nation, and his rock solid sense of freedom for all, particularly African Americans. We also get more of Lincoln the husband, Lincoln the father, and Linoln the "regular guy" as well as Lincoln the politician. I highly recommend this book.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Some books ought to bear the subtitle “something’s never change in America.” While many (at least) know the general outlines of the Abraham Lincoln presidency and the civil war but fewer know the detail that make Lincoln such a complex political (and human) figure. While laughably large proportions of the American white south continue (more than 150 YEARS LATER) to refuse to acknowledge that the civil war was about ending slavery, and just about the same proportions were all for the Trump coup, again, some may not know just how “par for the course” this is for the American south.
Meacham lays out plans to try to stop the counting of the vote, storming the capital, decapitating the sitting vice president as so much more that it boggles the mind that these people have the mendacity to think of themselves as the “real Americans.” One needed wonder (after reading Meacham’s book) exactly what they mean when they chant their lummox’s chant of “make America great again.”
The only thing that comes to mind when I read about Lincoln and the civil war is this: think about the progressive forward-leaning and rich country we could be if he had just let them go….
Meacham lays out plans to try to stop the counting of the vote, storming the capital, decapitating the sitting vice president as so much more that it boggles the mind that these people have the mendacity to think of themselves as the “real Americans.” One needed wonder (after reading Meacham’s book) exactly what they mean when they chant their lummox’s chant of “make America great again.”
The only thing that comes to mind when I read about Lincoln and the civil war is this: think about the progressive forward-leaning and rich country we could be if he had just let them go….
"We are not enemies, but friends," Lincoln wrote in his dear hand on a printed copy of the address. "We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
-Abraham Lincoln, 1861 inaugural address
-Abraham Lincoln, 1861 inaugural address
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
“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.”
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced