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A review by ncrabb
Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year by David von Drehle
5.0
If you elect to read the audio edition of this, one or two of you will see the reading time and discard it. At 17 hours and change, this isn’t something you’ll finish in a single sitting. But finish it you will, because VonDrehle’s writing style is so compelling and readable that when you finish, you’ll find it hard to believe the book was that long. It just won’t feel like it.
The book begins with a New Year’s Day event at the White House in which Lincoln greets dignitaries, and then he welcomes the entire community into the White House where he spends hours shaking hands. At the conclusion of the event, his hand is actually sore and trembling. The book ends with yet another New Year’s Day celebration at the beginning of 1863 when the recently signed Emancipation Proclamation is officially in effect. The book then breaks down, on a month-by-month basis, 1862 from the perspective of battles fought and decisions Lincoln made that, according to the author, tipped the war in favor of the union.
Of course, you’ll read about the death of Lincoln’s son, Willie, and about the horrific toll it took on Lincoln and his wife, especially her. But you’ll read stuff you perhaps never knew as well. I was unaware that Lincoln actually participated in a small military action in which he briefly led a small group of soldiers if I understood that part of the book correctly. You agonize with him over decisions about which general should be in charge of which aspects of the war. You see his perspective on the firing and rehiring of the egotistical, vain George B. McClellan as the commander of the Army of the Potomac.
You’ll be there in September at the Antietam battlefield, a bloody business that drove Confederate invaders out of Maryland and back into Virginia. The Federal victory that fall enabled Lincoln to publish with boldness the Emancipation Proclamation that would take effect in January of 1863.
I wasn’t a fan of the voices the commercial narrator used to delineate the people in the book. They aren’t over-the-top horrible, but I would have preferred a less vocally different narration. This is the kind of nonfiction you read even if nonfiction books scare you a bit. The author ensures that 1862 is highly approachable by anyone regardless of your knowledge of that time in our history. I gained much from this book, and I suspect you will as well.
The book begins with a New Year’s Day event at the White House in which Lincoln greets dignitaries, and then he welcomes the entire community into the White House where he spends hours shaking hands. At the conclusion of the event, his hand is actually sore and trembling. The book ends with yet another New Year’s Day celebration at the beginning of 1863 when the recently signed Emancipation Proclamation is officially in effect. The book then breaks down, on a month-by-month basis, 1862 from the perspective of battles fought and decisions Lincoln made that, according to the author, tipped the war in favor of the union.
Of course, you’ll read about the death of Lincoln’s son, Willie, and about the horrific toll it took on Lincoln and his wife, especially her. But you’ll read stuff you perhaps never knew as well. I was unaware that Lincoln actually participated in a small military action in which he briefly led a small group of soldiers if I understood that part of the book correctly. You agonize with him over decisions about which general should be in charge of which aspects of the war. You see his perspective on the firing and rehiring of the egotistical, vain George B. McClellan as the commander of the Army of the Potomac.
You’ll be there in September at the Antietam battlefield, a bloody business that drove Confederate invaders out of Maryland and back into Virginia. The Federal victory that fall enabled Lincoln to publish with boldness the Emancipation Proclamation that would take effect in January of 1863.
I wasn’t a fan of the voices the commercial narrator used to delineate the people in the book. They aren’t over-the-top horrible, but I would have preferred a less vocally different narration. This is the kind of nonfiction you read even if nonfiction books scare you a bit. The author ensures that 1862 is highly approachable by anyone regardless of your knowledge of that time in our history. I gained much from this book, and I suspect you will as well.