Customer Reviews

Abraham Lincoln (Penguin Lives)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After a bad experience with Tom Wicker's Penguin Lives book on Bush 41, I decided to give the series one more chance and got what I wanted with Keneally's Lincoln. I've read enough about the Civil War to have a decent understanding of Lincoln's Civil War years, but Keneally does a good concise job of leading the reader up to that point. This poor Lincoln could be compared to Job in so many ways. His wife Mary Todd would have been a handful for anyone, but circumstances resulted in him burying half his children from some disease or another. Lincoln then goes on to save the nation only to find a bullet.

Again and again in his career, Lincoln escaped his own ego in order to pursue the greater end. His homely self-effacing appearance and manner led many to underestimate him and he let them do so to win points later. You could argue that it won him the Republican nomination, because "smarter" men thought that they could control him. It was the same thing in his cabinet and with his commanding General, McClellan. Everybody wondered how this "idiot" could be in charge of the country. Some like McClellan never got wise, even after being roundly defeated by Lincoln in the 1864 election. Others like Stanton and Seward grew to understand Lincoln's brand of genius.

Like good literature, Lincoln dies at the end of the story rather than serving two more terms of mediocrity. Also like good literature, it was a southerner that killed the man, and the result of that action was a much harsher treatment by the radical Republicans toward the south than Lincoln would have cottoned too. As a reader of Shakespeare, Lincoln would have enjoyed the cosmic joke of it all.

Lincoln's greatness is without question so it's a little hard for an author to find fault with the man, but Keneally does what he can to present the full Lincoln and I enjoyed his 200 pages.

Having not been educated in the US where veneration of Lincoln is widespread, Thomas Keneally's biography of the famed president is a breath of fresh air.

There seems little doubt that Lincoln was a man of enormous vision and courage. He took on the vested interests of slavery and ultimately prevented the dissolution of the Union. Furthermore, his untimely death lifted his status to that of a martyr. In this case, however, his martyrdom is well warranted.

Keneally's work is an excellent starting point for any reader seeking an introduction to Lincoln. This book is part of a larger series covering a host of international luminaries. Lincoln's place in this pantheon is well deserved. The book itself is wonderful read for those wishing to understand Lincoln's place in history.

I'm only a casual reader of history and biographies. I didn't want to read a thousand-page work about Lincoln's extraordinary life. I only wanted an overview, some sort of work to give me a sense of the man. For my purposes, this little biography by Thomas Keneally was a success. It's brief, but it hits all of the most important points of the presidents life. It captures the contradictions and conflicts that marked Lincoln's life, and it does so with, at times, soem true lyricism. Keneally is a good writer (though his fiction such as Schindler's List is much better) and particularly over the first part of this biography, that is evident. The biography only suffers during the last half when Lincoln seems to disappear behind Keneally's depiction of the war. I don't think Lincoln's great role and conflicts during the war were aptly shown. Also, the biography ended too abruptly with no attempt at summation. I know that the Penguin Lives reach for brevity, but this is one of the shorter books in that series. Keneally could have given Lincoln another twenty pages and still been under 200 pages. Nevertheless, this biography is good, certainly serving its purpose as an overview that will answer essential questions and incite further inquiry into life of one of America's greatest presidents.

It is not clear why Keneally was chosen to be the author of this bio on Lincoln. I would have thought that there would have been many other more notable and capable historians to whom the publishers could have turned.

The series is deliberately designed to present deliberately short biographies of famous figures. Always a tough job and the decision tree of what to exclude, and in turn what to include would be very difficult.

Lincoln was a very complex character, complete with faults, but also stunning personal gifts. His life was full of failure, up until the time he became president, when he found his true calling, and skill sets.

Keneally tries to paint a picture of Lincoln that really doesn't grab the reader. It's not a bad effort, but neither does it grab the opportunity that this form of biography allows, particularly to people who are looking for an entry point into Lincoln, but don't want to (as yet) tackle a many hundred page biography.

A fair effort.

This is one of several volumes in the Penguin Lives Series, each of which written by a distinguished author in her or his own right. Each provides a concise but remarkably comprehensive biography of its subject in combination with a penetrating analysis of the significance of that subject's life and career. I think this is a brilliant concept. Those who wish to learn more about the given subject are directed to other sources.

While preparing to comment on various volumes in this series, I have struggled with determining what would be of greatest interest and assistance to those who read my reviews. Finally I decided that a few brief excerpts and then some concluding remarks of my own would be appropriate.

Keneally's approach to his subject is somewhat unorthodox. Other than explaining at the outset that he retains "the erratic spelling of some of the good-faith witnesses to Lincoln's life," he offers no introduction to the narrative. Rather, he proceeds immediately into a chronology which begins with Lincoln's birth "on a mattress of corn husks in a nest of bear rugs on the morning of February 12, a Sabbath, 1809, and until Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, which prompted Edwin M. Stanton to observe, "Now he belongs to the ages." Keneally concludes, "He had become the bloodied nation incarnate."

Keneally organizes his material within sixteen chapters. His gifts as a novelist are soon obvious, especially his use of figurative language and compelling details, but he seems wholly faithful to primary sources rather than taking certain liberties to achieve dramatic effect. For example, he does not invent conversations (however plausible) nor does he indulge in speculations which subsequent scholarship has not verified.

Lincoln's response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act which voided the Missouri Compromise: "[Senator Stephen A.] Douglas's initiative brought Lincoln back to passionate participation in politics, since [the Act] violated a number of his profoundly held principles. Her wanted the West to a home for free white people. It would not be so if it became slave states. `Slave states are places for poor white people to remove from; not to remove to.'"

On preserving the Union, Lincoln observed: "Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may divorce, and go out of the presence, and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them."

After Union forces had struck a "stunning blow" at Gettysburg, Lee and his forces were allowed to "slip" away. Meade had not seized the military advantage. Lincoln's reaction? "Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp...as it is, the war will [now] be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the [Potomac]...As you have learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to tell you why."

Prior to delivering his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln had noticed the empty coffins at the railroad depot and freshly dug graves nearby awaiting their corpses. According to Keneally, "It is now known that the difficulties of identifying the contents of the shallowly dug battlefield graves meant that some Confederates, wearing remnants of captured Union uniforms, were buried among the Union troops, an accident of which Lincoln would probably have approved." After Grant assumed command of all Union forces on January 29, 1863, they eventually prevailed. On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered his Confederate army to Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Lincoln was then re-elected to a second term.

According to Keneally, Lincoln later shared with his wife Mary the details of a nightmare during which he encountered a catafalque on which rested a corpse in funeral vestments. Around it guards were stationed. "Who is dead in the White House?" Lincoln asked. "The president," one of them answered, "he was killed by an assassin!" Not long after that nightmare, Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre on Good Friday.

Of course, these brief excerpts are taken out of context but, I hope, offer at least some indication of Keneally's approach to his subject. The Lincoln he portrays is both majestic and insecure, stubborn and deferential, principled and devious, but at all times profoundly human. Hopefully these brief excerpts and comments will encourage those who read this review to read Keneally's biography. It is a brilliant achievement.

This was my favorite in the series so far. Of course it shortchanges the war years--but then Sandburg wrote four thick volumes on those years and even he didn't cover everything. Where this book excels is in humanizing a man who is known to most Americans mostly as an icon. It's particularly vivid on his early years. When I grew up (I was born in the 1950s), Lincoln's formative years were the stuff of legend and lore--the log cabin, the rail-splitting, the feats of strength, all that hagiography stuff. Keneally does a nice job of making those years real again, and that's what I enjoyed most.

Keneally is a nice discovery too--I'd never read anything of his before, and this book was so nicely written that I think I'll look for other things by him.

I'm really enamored of the Penguin lives series. For years biographies just got longer, and longer, and longer, until they got virtually impossible for non-specialists to read (I mean, has Dumas Malone reached the end of his Jefferson bio yet? Is it still ongoing? What is it by now, 26, 27 volumes? I had to quit after three). I'm not saying there isn't a place for that sort of biography--of course there is--but these "shorties" fill a real need too. With them, I can revisit old favorites, and also read bios of people I've never had a great deal of interest in. For instance, I just read Bobbie Ann Mason's bio of Elvis. It's virtually the first thing about Elvis I've ever read, and if it had been 300 pages there would have been no way I would have picked it up.

So, bravo to Penguin. And bravo to Keneally for this entertaining and humanizing view of Lincoln as a real person. Don't be put off by reviewers who will (inevitably) dispute the details of Keneally's portrait; this isn't the last word on Lincoln, and it isn't meant to be. It's a good read nonetheless.

I think Thomas Keneally could make a shopping list an interesting read; he is that good a writer. Certainly there are many biographies out there about Lincoln and many studies of various aspects of his life, but for a brief introduction that could entice further investigation you could not do better than this. Keneally has the ability to make historical figures come alive which is evident in this book. His depiction of Lincoln first arriving at Springfield is wonderful. If he sometimes chooses the colorful detail over the most probable detail, there is at least some historical evidence to support what he chooses to present. I recommend this highly.

Keneally may not be as exalted a writer as others who have written about our greatest President, but he does a good job summarizing Abraham Lincoln. At approximately 150 pages, the reader learns about Lincoln's early heritage and the political and military battles of his Presidency. This is basic stuff, so if a reader needs more details, consult some of the other fine books on Lincoln.
I find some of the info about Lincoln somewhat in doubt. First Keneally states Lincoln may have had a sexual disease. I have read some on Lincoln, but I never found that in other references. Perhaps I missed that somewhere. Also in doubt is Lincoln's paternity where Tom Lincoln was not the father of Abraham. Keneally dismisses that but should we include that in a short biography of this famous man.
Overall a good concise read on our most famous President. Readers who desire the basics on this man will do well to read this book.

This can serve as a primer in Lincoln and Civil War history. In a concise, easy to read and suspenseful tale one learns how Lincoln, coming from the most common of backgrounds, lifted himself up in the best of entrepreneurial spirit, and by a fluke of events was catapulted from country lawyer and orator, a one-term Congressman who just a year earlier had lost an attempt to become Senator from Illinois, to become President of the United States of America. His inauguration took place as the Southern States had already formed a Confederacy, the Union was falling apart, and Washington,D.C. was at threat to be overrun by Rebel forces.

The course of the great Civil War is retold with Lincoln's input to his field generals well documented and retold. One learns of the great turning point battles of this bloody and painful contest. Lincoln's relationships to his family and colleagues are insightful to the character and make-up of this both humble and brave leader. The modern economy of greenbacks and taxes was born, too, and documented herein. In such a small book the scope of its tale is quite surprising.

Of course the end is abrupt. On the heels of his winning a 2nd term and of Lee's surrender of the Army of Virginia, Lincoln is gunned down at the Ford Theater. The book aptly ends with a quote from his Cabinet member Stanton: "Now he belongs to the ages". And the author Keneally adds:" he had become the bloodied nation incarnate".

Lincoln and the Civil War are complex subjects and Mr. Keneally did a superb job of describing both in a concise manner. Although the book was primarily factual it was a pleasant read and it increased my sense of awe for Lincoln.