Lincoln

This biography offers a comprehensive view of Lincoln's life in a fair and balanced perspective. The author obviously has great respect towards Lincoln, but does a great job of portraying Lincoln in a very objective way. One can see all the short comings that Lincoln had; he was not perfect by all means. For example, hiring Cameron for Secretary of War, and hanging on to the incompetent General Mcclellan as the Chief commander for almost a full year show that on some occasions Lincoln deserved to be called 'imbecile'(surprisingly large number of newspapers and politicians at that time called him that name). Also, the author introduces most of the criticisms Lincoln faced in great details to give the readers a sense of how the political landscape was.

Despite all the shortcomings of Lincoln, his achievements far outweighs everything else and therefore we call him the greatest president of all times.

The author is a great biography writer--two times Pulitzer winner. This 600 pager is just the right length for an average reader. It would not offer enough details if less than p600; I would not have dared to read it if it was more. (for example, Steven Oates' version is p436, which gives an impression of just skimming over the surface; Mccoullough's Truman is p1000--forget about it!)

This book is purported to be the best one volume Lincoln biography. Having not read all the other books in this category I cannot attest to the accuracy of this statement, but if not the best, it is surely one of the best one-volume biographies. The book is clearly written and is, in my opinion, fairly balanced in its presentation. It does not fall into the trap of hero worship that many Lincoln biographies are apt to. Professor Donald provides the facts with a minimum of the pseudo psychoanalysis that plague some 20th century biographies.

As the author states in the preface, this book is written from the perspective of what Lincoln knew and is therefore he does not try to paint a comprehensive picture of the Civil War. For instance, the book does not contain information about the pressures on Jefferson Davis or other issues facing the Confederacy of which Lincoln was unaware. This book is also not a military history. For instance, the battle of Gettysburg is not discussed, except to state that the Union forces were victorious.

The question arises as to why one should read this book, as opposed to other more extensive, multi-volume, biographies, such as that by Carl Sandburg. In the preface the author points out that in 1890, after they were used by Lincoln's authorized biographers (his personal secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay), Lincoln's personal papers in the Library of Congress were sealed. They only became available again in1947 and were, therefore, not available to biographers such as Carl Sandburg or J.C Randall. Professor Donald was thus in a position to include information that was not previously available (except to Lincoln's secretaries, who were less than impartial when it comes to evaluating Lincoln).

This book is valuable not only because it details the principle events in Lincoln's life, but also because it details the incredible pressures he was under. He not only had to lead a country through it's most devastating war, but had to do it with an army that was initially led by generals who were either to timid, to slow or to incompetent to bring the war to a victorious end in the initial years of fighting. As the fighting continued, year after year, he found himself in an increasingly hostile political environment, not only in terms of the opposing Democratic Party, but also from segments of his own Republican party, including members of his own cabinet. Professor Donald shows how he handled these pressures and how his views on such pivotal questions as Emancipation and Reconstruction evolved. This is a great book for anyone who wants to know about Lincoln, the Civil War and how they shaped and still shape American values and history.

Everyone has their favorite one-volume biography of Lincoln. This is not just mine, but many others' as well. Reason: its narrow focus--the man himself, what he saw, knew, did, and thought, from birth to death. No grand historical sweep here, no psycholgical deconstruction, no "lessons", for historians, or future presidents, or anyone else. Just clean, utterly credible narrative.

Professor Donald was 76 years old when he published this work. He immersed himself in the Abraham Lincoln Papers, which had been sealed for eighty years, until 1947. He had written or co-written ten previous books about Lincoln and the Civil War era. That deep learning gave him the confidence to write this book with particluar clarity and force.

When Michaelangelo was asked how he carved his "David", he is said to have answered, "It was already there, in the marble. I just carved away all that was not David." Here, Donald has carved away all that is not Lincoln, and the result is sublime.

We all know how the story of Lincoln tragically ends. Therefore it is a testament to the biographer's consummate writing talent that one still feels a sense of emotion and loss when he describes that night at the Ford Theater. In the six hundred pages that come before, he so perfectly captures Abraham Lincoln the man, his strengths, his sometimes surprising flaws, that you feel in some way you know him. That is David Herbert Donald's singular achievement. With a style that avoids stuffiness and prolixity, this is a great read for both the casual reader and the more serious student of history.

I read this book a couple of years ago. I've heard it described more than once as the "definitive" Lincoln bio, but it's not the most readable. I don't insist that the history I read be easy and light, but this book was a bit too dense and detailed for me. Parts were interesting, but I got majorly bogged down in the middle. There have to be Lincoln bios out there that would be of more interest to the general reader.