As the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth approaches, these provocative essays constitute a perfect sneak preview of the likely...
An award-winning historian assembles 12 essays from distinguished scholars commenting on Lincoln—the man, the emancipator and the chief executive.
Taking full advantage of the current “golden age of Lincoln scholarship,” Foner (History/Columbia Univ.; Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, 2005, etc.) commissions contributions both from Lincoln specialists and from historians who’ve helped reshape our understanding of 19th-century America. With a few exceptions—David Blight’s piece on the modern Republican Party’s mangling of Lincoln’s legacy is a bit overheated, and Catherine Clinton’s commentary on Lincoln’s family attempts too much in too little space—this cross-pollination succeeds. The essays are highly readable, mercifully free of academic cant and at least hint at new Lincoln discoveries, large and small. Harold Holzer makes a minor but intriguing point with his discussion of the influence of artists, painters and sculptures on famous photographic images of Lincoln. Manisha Sinha usefully recovers the names of black abolitionists—Frederick Douglass was not alone—who helped push Lincoln toward emancipation. Mark Neely takes a timely look at the fate of civil liberties under Lincoln during wartime. Especially strong contributions come from James McPherson, who reminds us of the centrality of Lincoln’s role as commander in chief; Foner, who examines the controversial and surprisingly vibrant movement for colonization of black Americans in Africa or elsewhere; and Richard Carwardine, who incisively discusses Lincoln’s evolving religious beliefs. The most notable essays are Andrew Delbanco’s beautiful discussion of Lincoln’s pioneering use of American English; James Oakes’s brilliant analysis of the various rights Lincoln believed governed race relations; and Sean Wilentz’s explication of the influence of Jacksonian democracy on Lincoln’s politics, as promising a vein as any for new assessments of our 16th president.
As the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth approaches, these provocative essays constitute a perfect sneak preview of the likely scholarly agenda.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-393-06756-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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