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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... hope my narrative conveys some sense of him as a living man , for I wrote it in a style that seeks to describe as well as to analyze , to feel as well as to comprehend . The thing about Lincoln is that he keeps growing and chang- ing ...
... hope is a fair and compassionate portrait of Mary Lincoln , surely the most misunderstood First Lady in our history . Because her whole life was bound up with Lincoln , Mary's desolate years alone constitute a tragic coda to the Lincoln ...
... hope adds up to an original and spirited portrait . In shaping it , I benefited enormously from a growing library of modern Lincoln studies . In fact , the last couple of decades have witnessed a veritable renaissance of Lincoln ...
... hope of Lincoln that physical segregation of the races might be brought about for the good of both races . " For Lincoln understood , as Vardaman did , that the Negro had " never built a monument , created a civilization , or added one ...
... hope in the Lincoln story . In the South , they celebrated every January 1 , Emancipation Day , with stemwinding oratory . One Negro leader recalled that while growing up in Chicago in the 1940s he read all six volumes of Sandburg's ...
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 |