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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
215 of 220 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lincoln,
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This review is from: The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Kindle Edition)
I've loved Abraham Lincoln since I read a biography of him in the third grade for a book report. There are no shortages of biographies of the great men in American History and they are all generally variations on the same stories that I learned in the third grade.
This book is unique in that it is written by a general in the Union Army..though he never mentions that in the book. The author actually knew Lincoln, fought for the Union and can knowledgably speak of the other generals and the civil war as he was involved. But this is not a book about Henry Ketcham, much to his credit. It's a loving book of Lincoln. It is not a book to learn the history of the time, though you do. It's a book to make you feel as if you actually knew Lincoln. Reading the Eulogies at the end of the book brings tears to your eyes and makes you realize what a truly great man he was. Not just a great President, that's obvious, but a great man.
121 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Lincoln I never met,
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This review is from: The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Kindle Edition)
Growing up in Illinois I learned a great deal about Lincoln. I even built a scale model of his home from a photograph. But I never learned who the man was, the sense of what he would like to talk to, or as a neighbor. This book filled that void in my eduacation, a void that looks even more important in hindsight. I understood the important decisions Lincoln had made and knew the dates he had made them. But I never had been told why he made those decisions and had been so firm in his support of them. It had always bothered me to be told someone was great because they had made great decisions. But in this book we don't meet the famous Lincoln written about in today's history books. In this book we met Lincoln as a contemporary of the author. We meet the man Henry Ketcham knew. And it is through his words that I finally got a sense of the man behind all those great decisions.
Ketcham wrote this book only decades after Lincoln's death but in that time society and technology had both changed a bit. For example, he mentions how as a result of growing up earlier and on the frontier that Lincoln had not had such modern conveniences as gas lights in his home or sidewalks and paved roads. I got a sense of just how rapidly technology was affecting society even then. And it struck me even more powerfully than seeing the mock-ups of frontier homes had. If Lincoln's childhood had seemed rough to someone who thought gas lights were advanced he truly had it hard. And the description of the house being open along one side had not made it into any of the books I had previously read. I cannot imagine what winter must have been like for that family. When the inevitable ending comes it does so with more sorrow for what a man we lost, not just a president but a person. He had held himself to a very high standard while being compassionate enough to understand if others could not manage to hold themselves to the same. He forgave others their weaknesses but strove to strengthen himself. And he enjoyed a good book more than most while still able to tell a funny story well when it came to be his turn. His heart had been broken but he worked to give what he could of what was left. I really feel as if I have only now met the real Abraham Lincoln. And if you read only one book about him, this should be that one.
39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required Reading for All,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Kindle Edition)
My only regret is that I did not read this book earlier in life; in my formative years, so to speak. A history lesson I shall long savior. I often took for granted the life of our 16th President from the little learned in school or in a Hollywood synopsis. A copper penny, a five-dollar bill, was my only present recollection of this ancient being. But now, what a great man, I have found! The Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Henry Ketcham, though a book of antiquity is a work presently easily read. For any American who reads the biographies of great men in the hopes of learning some nugget to inspire, I highly recommend this E-Book. Let the following quote by J. G Holland sum up my feelings of Mr. Lincoln: "Conscience, and not expediency, not temporary advantage, not popular applause, not the love of power, was the ruling and guiding motive of his life. He was patient with his enemies, and equally patient with equally unreasonable friends. No hasty act of his administration can be traced to his impatience. He had a tender, brotherly regard for every human being; and the thought of oppression was torment to him. A statesman without a statesman's craftiness, a politician without a politician's meanesses, a great man without a great man's vices, a philanthropist without a philanthropist's impracticable dreams, a Christian without pretensions, a ruler without the pride of place and power, an ambitious man without selfishness' and a successful man without vanity."
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