The Living Lincoln

by Horrocks, Thomas A.; Holzer, Harold; Williams, Frank J.; Stauffer, John

• ISBN13: 9780809330294
• ISBN10: 0809330296
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-02
• Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr

Summary

The Living Lincolngives new voice to several aspects of Abraham Lincoln's career as seen through the lens of recent scholarship, in essays that show how the sixteenth president's appeal continues to endure and expand. Featuring eleven essays from major historians, the book offers thoughtful, provocative, and highly original examinations of Lincoln's role as commander-in-chief, his use of the press to shape public opinion, his position as a politician and party leader, and the changing interpretations of his legacy as a result of cultural and social changes over the century and a half since his death. In an opening section focusing largely on Lincoln's formative years, insightful explorations into his early self-education and the era before his presidency come from editors Frank J. Williams and Harold Holzer, respectively. Readers will also glimpse a Lincoln rarely discerned in books: calculating politician, revealed in Matthew Pinsker's illuminating essay, and shrewd military strategist, as demonstrated by Craig L. Symonds. Stimulating discussions from Edna Greene Medford, John Stauffer, and Michael Vorenberg tell of Lincoln's friendship with Frederick Douglass, his gradualism on abolition, and his evolving thoughts on race and the Constitution to round out part two. Part three features reflections on his martyrdom and memory, including a counterfactual history from Gerald J. Prokopowicz that imagines a hypothetical second term for the president, emphasizing the differences between Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson. Barry Schwartz's contribution presents original research that yields fresh insight into Lincoln's evolving legacy in the South, while Richard Wightman Fox dissects Lincoln's 1865 visit to Richmond, and Orville Vernon Burton surveys and analyzes recent Lincoln scholarship. This thought-provoking new anthology, introduced at a major bicentennial symposium at Harvard University, offers a wide range of ideas and interpretations by some of the best-known and most widely respected historians of our time. The Living Lincoln is essential reading for those seeking a better understanding of this nation's greatest president and how his actions resonate today.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: The Living Lincoln	p. 1
Leadership in the Making
The Educated Mr. Lincoln	p. 9
Boss Lincoln: A Reappraisal of Abraham Lincoln's Party Leadership	p. 20
The Silent President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln, the Orator Who Would Not Speak	p. 38
ôI Know but Little about Shipsö: Lincoln and the Navy in the Civil War	p. 63
Race and Slavery
Lincoln's ôStep-Childrenö and the National Family	p. 79
Lincoln and Race in Nineteenth-Century Perspective	p. 98
Was Lincoln's Constitution Color-Blind?	p. 115
Martyrdom and Memory
Lincoln's Practice of Republicanism: Striding through Richmond, April 4,1865	p. 131
The Fatal Transition: From Lincoln to Johnson	p. 152
Abraham Lincoln in the Mind of the South: Assassination to Reconciliation	p. 169
Lincoln at Two Hundred: Have We Finally Reached Randall's Point of Exhaustion?	p. 204
Contributors	p. 229
Index	p. 233
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