The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words [Paperback]

Ronald C. White Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2006

“White takes us back to when great men believed in the power of words to change the world. . . . This book . . . is a treasure to read, a spur to thinking, a small volume with fascinating history.”–The Denver Post

In The Eloquent President, historian Ronald C. White, Jr., examines Abraham Lincoln’s astonishing oratory and explores his growth as a leader, a communicator, and a man of deepening spiritual conviction. Examining a different speech, address, or public letter in each chapter, White tracks the evolution of Lincoln’s rhetoric from the measured tones of the First Inaugural to the immortal poetry of the Gettysburg Address. As he weighs the biblical cadences and vigorous parallel structures that make Lincoln’s rhetoric soar, White identifies a passionate religious strain that most historians have overlooked. It is White’s contention that, as president, Lincoln not only grew into an inspiring leader and determined commander in chief, but also embarked on a spiritual odyssey that led to a profound understanding of the relationship between human action and divine will. With grace and insight, White captures the essence of the four most critical years of Lincoln’s life and makes his great words live for our time in all their power and beauty.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

White (Lincoln's Greatest Speech) traces Lincoln's evolving rhetoric over the course of his presidency in a series of highly detailed critical essays. He follows Lincoln from the cautious, lawyerly text of the First Inaugural to the soaring, triumphant poetics of the Gettysburg Address. As White rightly emphasizes, a great deal of presidential power emanates from "rhetorical leadership." During the darkest moments of Lincoln's generally grim presidency, he had only his own stark eloquence with which to keep his "house divided" from collapsing entirely, and—up to a point—it is intriguing to study the mechanics of Lincoln's vital words. Throughout his book, White not only documents the growth of Lincoln's capacity for great inspirational language, but also shows how each major speech and public remark of Lincoln's presidential career was influenced and shaped by shifting, and eminently practical, political considerations. White is adept at analyzing Lincoln's structural tics and cadences, and the subtle plays of syntax in which he relished the repetition of such complementary words as "renew" and "anew." This level of detail, however, makes for some very long and dry—albeit illuminating—analysis that only the most devoted Lincoln enthusiast will likely be willing to wade through. B&w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

An extension of White's Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (2002), this work follows the entire arc of the sixteenth president's Civil War speeches. As president, Lincoln made only three or four public statements per year. White selects 11 and discusses the background of the occasion for their delivery and the rhetoric of their composition. An evocative refrain in White's individual discussions is the consideration Lincoln gave to the sound of his speeches, which are characterized by alliteration, parallelism ("We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth"), and the repetition of anchoring ideas ("If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it"). They also increasingly departed from the legalistic first inaugural address and became markedly theological, culminating in the sermonlike second inaugural address. Stressing how Lincoln intended his words to be heard, White strengthens their appearance on the page. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (January 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812970462
• ISBN-13: 978-0812970463
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #455,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly explains substance and style of Lincoln's prose, February 8, 2005

By 

R. B. Bernstein "R. B. Bernstein, Adjunct Pro... (Brooklyn, New York USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (Hardcover)

Abraham Lincoln was eloquent; everybody knows that. But what kind of eloquence did he have? How did he use it to advance his ideas and political agenda? How did he use it to enlighten the American people and to summon up the best that this nation can be? Any reader who has any interest in those questions must read this book. It is a profound yet lucid and fast-moving examination of Lincoln's uses of oratory as president-elect and as president. It stands with yet somehow manages to eclipse studies of specific speeches such as Garry Wills's LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG or the author's previous study of the Second Inaugural Address, LINCOLN'S GREATEST SPEECH. I teach Lincoln in my Law and Literature course and I plan to have this book at my elbow as I teach Lincoln this semester.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent look at Lincoln's developing eloquence, July 8, 2005

By 

Scott E. Rosenau (Hanover, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (Hardcover)

In this book, White expands the focus from his previous work on Lincoln's Second Inaugural ("Lincoln's Greatest Speech" published in 2002). White looks at the progression of Lincoln's thought and the increasing greatness and eloquence of his speeches and public letters during his presidency that leads to that final and considered by many to be his greatest major speech.

In the process of examining these speeches, White looks at them each individually, but also looks at their relationship to one another as "a string of pearls" (a term he uses more than once in the book). White uses this visual description of the speeches stating that while each pearl is beautiful in its own way and can be examined separately, they also come together and one pearl connects to others in the string that can best be understood by comparing them to each other and examining the ways they are connected. In many of the speeches, White demonstrates that Lincoln leaves the audience with thoughts and ideas that his mind is still wrestling with that are picked up again in a later speech and developed more fully as his thoughts on those subjects have matured over time.

White has also done an excellent job in selecting the best and most memorable speeches and public letters from Lincoln's presidency. He begins with Lincoln's farewell remarks at Springfield on February, 11, 1861 and includes remarks from his journey to Washington. Also included are both of Lincoln's Inaugural Addresses, his reply to Horace Greeley's "Prayer of Twenty Millions," the 1862 Message to Congress, Conkling Letter, and Gettysburg Address. As I read each chapter on each of the speeches, I got a sense of the growth of Lincoln and the development of his thought until it reached its twin climaxes of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The self-taught communicator, March 8, 2005

By 

B. D. Weimer "lex rex" (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (Hardcover)

For anyone who enjoys the process of writing and speaking, this book is a great treat. Lincoln carefully selected words for their mental and emotional impact. And he seems to have gotten better every year. Very inspiring!