Customer Reviews

The President Is Shot!: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

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I bought my copy of this book in the basement of Ford's Theater. I read a good deal of it to my family by the light of the lone bulb in our Catoctin Mountain cabin on warm July evening. Nostalgia and warm feelings play a part in this review.

That said, this is not the first work on Lincoln I have read by Mr. Holzer. I have enjoyed greatly his various compilations of things written by or about our 16th President. His book, Lincoln at Cooper Union, is both very readable and masterfully researched and composed.

This book, its special personal value to me aside, is just as excellent (though admittedly lacking in depth) as a work for young readers interested in the collision course that our Nation, not to mention Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Booth, was/were on by the spring of 1865.

Mr. Holzer is the master of lucid and direct prose. He puts story back into history. He boils down but does not misrepresent events and personalities.

He does a wonderful job of making this book compelling.

For those interested in a more in-depth book on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, let me suggest Blood on the Moon.

To get the gist of what happened, and what it all means to us, one need look no further than this excellent little volume. I give The President Is Shot! my highest recommendation.

Harold Holzer, the author of this book, is a renowned Lincoln scholar. While a lot of the material has appeared before in other works, Holzer presents it in a new way, suitable for young people or those adults who know very little about the Lincoln assassination and its aftermath. The book is easy to read, and to me, does not trivialize the material or make an adult reading it feel like an elementary school student. Its language is simple and easy to understand (unlike the assassination itself). If the reader wishes, there are many more Holzer books about Lincoln worth delving into, but this will do nicely as a start. It is amply illustrated and is an Amazon purchase well worth the money.