Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths“There is no better introduction to current thinking about Lincoln and his place in history.” —Newsday An essential book for any student of Lincoln and American history, Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths is acclaimed Lincoln biographer Stephen B. Oates's unique exploration of America's sixteenth president in reality and memory. In this multifaceted portrait, Oates, "the most popular historical interpreter of Lincoln" (Gabor S. Boritt, New York Times Book Review), exposes the human side of the great and tragic president—including his depression, his difficulties with love, and his troubled and troubling attitudes about slavery—while also confronting the many legends that have arisen around "Honest Abe." Oates throughout raises timely questions about what the Lincoln mythos reveals about the American people. |
From inside the book
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... Union - and its experiment in popular government - in the holocaust of civil war . In the end , after enduring four unendurable years , he himself became a casu- alty of that conflict , gunned down by John Wilkes Booth just when the war ...
... union . In 1856 , with uncanny foresight , Whitman asserted that " I would be much pleased to see some heroic , shrewd , fully - informed , healthy bod- ied , middle - aged , beard - faced American blacksmith come down from the West ...
... Union , patiently sticking to the cherished middle way . When it comes to emancipation , he always follows the pulse of the people : with a genius for timing , he issues his proclamation only when that is what they want . Now " a piece ...
... Union to save their slave - based social order from Lincoln's grasp . They hated the man . In rebel eyes , he was the black - hearted radical who had fomented the war . He was a Yankee Attila , a mobocrat , a lunatic , the biggest " ass ...
... Union , the satanic Lincoln bequeathed a disastrous legacy to twentieth - century Americans : the ideological rationale for their efforts to save the world . In part , the extravagance of such countermythology comes from the size of the ...
Contents
ManyMooded | 31 |
All Conquering Mind | 45 |
Mr Lincoln | 51 |
The Beacon Light of Liberty | 57 |
This Vast Moral Evil | 65 |
My Dissatisfied Fellow Countrymen | 75 |
The Central Idea | 89 |
The Man of Our Redemption | 111 |
Final | 149 |
Aftermath | 164 |
Acknowledgments | 189 |
Index | 215 |