Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Abraham Lincoln, with his son Tad in tow, walked around Richmond, Virginia, one day in April 1865, and if you try to retrace their steps..." (more)
Key Phrases: Abraham Lincoln, New Salem, White House (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The question that animates this original, insightful, disarmingly funny book is: how do Americans commemorate Lincoln, and what do our memories of him reveal about our visions of the good life? To discover the answer, Ferguson, an editor at the Weekly Standard and a Lincoln buff, made a long field trip, poking into many of the places where Americans have chosen to remember—or to forget—Honest Abe. He eavesdrops on the Lincoln Reconsidered conference, where a group of "Abephobes" aim to retrieve Lincoln's memory from the distortions of "liberal historians." He considers the "Disney aesthetic" of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., and attends a convention of Lincoln "presenters" (otherwise known as impersonators). Ferguson is occasionally and unnecessarily snide, and a deeper examination of the changing place of Lincoln in mainstream historical scholarship would have added a great deal to the book. Still, Ferguson's conclusions are stirring. He finds Lincoln's meaning best articulated by Robert Moton, an educator whose parents were slaves. With great simplicity, Moton explained Lincoln's greatness: "...in a time of doubt and distrust... he spoke the word that gave freedom to a race and vindicated the honor of a Nation conceived in liberty...." (June)
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From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Harold Holzer To anyone who watched the 2005 Discovery Channel mini-series "Greatest American" -- and millions did -- it is clear that Abraham Lincoln has morphed from controversial paradox to national icon back to controversial paradox. Condemned by 19th-century critics for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation too quickly (voters eviscerated his party in the next congressional elections), Lincoln has been damned by 21st-century critics for doing so too slowly. Historians are well aware of this revisionist phenomenon; many have contributed to it.

Now magazine writer Andrew Ferguson, a passionate Lincoln buff in his youth, has reawakened his long-dormant interest to discover the complex status of Lincoln's reputation. His new book is part historiography, part travelogue, part memoir and part indictment -- if not of Lincoln, then of some of the modern Americans who devote themselves to preserving his reputation and memory.

The book has been cleverly issued for Father's Day, because much of it is devoted to Ferguson's hilarious efforts to force-feed Lincoln to his cyberspace-conditioned children. Hoping to vacation in the mountains or by the shore, the youngsters are instead dragged to the Lincoln sites Ferguson treasured in his own childhood. No parent who ever packed a family into a station wagon will fail to identify with, and roar at, the adventures of the Ferguson clan on the Lincoln Heritage Trail -- Ferguson's son winces "against the torrent of information" in Springfield while his daughter mimics Dad's tour-guide enthusiasm. And no father will be disappointed by their inevitable epiphany. The old sites may have been reinterpreted into politically correct pabulum, the new ones blaringly Disneyfied, but somehow the impregnable Lincoln story -- that of the poor child who lived the American dream -- still resonates.

Ferguson's cultural insights are vivid and penetrating. He is a gifted observer and terrific writer, at his best with his family in tow.

Unfortunately, he traveled on his own, too, and at private homes, museums, hotels, restaurants, conventions and retreats, his less charitable side occasionally took over. Maybe he missed his wife and kids.

By way of disclosure, my name appears in this book. Ferguson mentions me in passing (as "a specialist in Lincolniana" who "used to write speeches for Mario Cuomo," an identification that will undoubtedly surprise Cuomo, who wrote his own). Ferguson also manages to mischaracterize -- character assassinate might be a better term -- a number of Lincoln enthusiasts whom I have known for years, while puffing up some I wish I hadn't. Such is his prerogative, but sometimes the vitriol boils over. Frank Williams, who founded and still chairs the Lincoln Forum, is undeservedly caricatured as a self-aggrandizing don. California mega-collector Louise Taper, a generous lender to public exhibitions, is observed in her vault fondling her treasures like a latter-day Midas.

Lincoln impersonators, who sport stovetop hats and frock coats at their annual conventions, are easy targets. Left unsaid is the fact that in today's comparatively history-free schools, these earnest pros sometimes constitute our last, best hope of teaching Lincoln to children who lack fathers like Andrew Ferguson. Lincoln haters such as the born-again Confederates who viciously disrupted the unveiling of a Lincoln statue in Richmond get more sympathetic treatment than the folks who commissioned the sculpture.

Oddly enough, Ferguson recently appeared with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN's book show "Q & A" to extol some of the people he savages in print. Those who saw the Dr. Jekyll on the tube might be astonishe by the Mr. Hyde who occasionally comes through in these pages.

Conceding he has read much of the Lincoln literature for the first time, Ferguson can be forgiven a few errors. It is not true that Lincoln "declined" to run for re-election to Congress "when it became clear he would lose." He had agreed to serve only one term in order to rotate the safe seat among other rising Whigs, but, given the chance, would have gladly stood for a second term. And Lincoln did not donate his handwritten Emancipation Proclamation to the Chicago Historical Society. Rather, he gave it to a Chicago charity sale, winning a gold watch in the bargain for making the most valuable donation. That said, Ferguson demonstrates a shrewd skepticism for William H. Herndon's 19th-century Lincoln research, which too many modern biographers digest without the requisite grains of salt.

But these are minor issues. The major one is the cynicism that pervades so much of Ferguson's otherwise trenchant, sometimes laugh-out-loud narrative.

Readers won't soon forget his hilarious re-telling of the final performance of one Billy Edd Wheeler's musical "Young Abe Lincoln," featuring pioneers a'dancin' "when someone got married or died, went a-huntin' or a-courtin', and even, in a particularly confusing dream sequence, when someone fell asleep." His saga of rediscovery manages to be both funny and depressing, a rare accomplishment. But is it fair? One cannot help wishing that what Ferguson has captured is not really Lincoln's America. Hopefully it is not America's Lincoln, either.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1St Edition edition (June 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871139677
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139672
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #467,630 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln, and so much more..., May 17, 2007

By	James Hiller (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I'm probably one of the biggest Abe Lincoln fans this side of the Mississippi, the west side, that is. Ever since I got bitten by the Abe bug in fifth grade (that horrendous Gettysburg paper diorama still comes to mind), the sixteenth president has haunted me and stayed with me through thick and thin. My interest, more than a mere dabbling, is proven by a range of Lincoln books that grace the downstairs bookshelf, one of the newest being Goodwin's marvelous yarn Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Suffice it to say, that most of my Lincoln books offer a favorable look at the grisly old man, savior of our nation, and that's what I prefer. When another book pops up on the surface, needless-to-say, I consider buying it to add to the library. So it was with great flourish, and immediacy, that I just found Andrew Ferguson's new Lincoln book Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America and within minutes, was standing in line purchasing it. Two hours later, and I've read it. And what a joy this book is!

Andrew Ferguson's take on Abe is a quest for the truth of Lincoln, not a mythologized superhero, sent by the Heavens to wash the scourge of slavery from the continent, but a real life man, flaws and all. Ferguson goes to the "Lincoln" places in America, to investigate how he has or is being portrayed by the various locations: both positive and negative.

Ferguson starts off his book dealing with a controversy I had barely heard about, but seem to remember: the placement of a Lincoln statue in Richmond, VA. Ferguson doesn't shy away from the controversy, but goes to live in it and what's more, understand it. He talks with the men who, with thinly veiled, inferred racist beliefs, wish to paint Lincoln as a warmongering industrialist, whose only goal was to ride roughshod over the defenseless, agrarian South. Attending both a pro and anti-Lincoln conference, Ferguson decries both as unreal, and charts the goal for the rest of his book: to unearth, uncover the real Lincoln.

Ferguson's writing style is both information and brisk. He is honest in his love for Lincoln, and how he lost it, and began to recover it through this book. Sometimes, in reading books like this, the story becomes more about the author and less about the subject matter. No worries. Ferguson steps out of the way at times and let's the story shine through.

And what a story he tells. This is a wonderful book for any weekend historian, Lincoln enthusiast, or someone itching to get into our country's history a little bit more. If you liked Assassination Vacation or Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, you'll adore this book. Does Ferguson achieve his goal: yes, in his own way. The Lincoln he unearths is real, bawdy, human, and alive. He also drives home a new point: the Lincoln each of us loves is the Lincoln we all see in ourselves.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Done -- Highly Recommended, May 10, 2007

By	Gray Flannel Dwarf "GFD" (South Bend, IN) - See all my reviews

Andrew Ferguson is a great writer with a subtle sense of humor. In Land of Lincoln, Ferguson, a self-described "buff" of Abraham Lincoln, checks in on how Lincoln is faring in modern America with asides on how he has fared in the past. The book is alternatively funny and sad: "Lincoln" is certainly firmly rooted in American history and culture, but who exactly is this "Lincoln" is indeterminate -- often a product of the needs of people rather than a free standing figure.

The first part of the book is Ferguson traveling to various Lincoln sites solo -- e.g., Richmond, Chicago, and Springfield Illinois. The second part is a forced family journey to sites involving Lincoln in Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana as Ferguson tries to recreate the family journey he took as a child.

The book is very well done with funny moments (the anti-Lincoln convention and the Lincoln reenactors convention are great examples) and sad and melancholy discussions (the new disneyfied Lincoln experience in Springfield and the transformation of Lincoln in the Chicago Historical Society). Through it all Ferguson is a a shrewd and understated observed who allows his interviewees to state their cases with little or no comment by Ferguson.

Ferguson is clearly a well-educated on the topic of Lincoln and Lincoln Historiography and the book cleary is a labor of love.

I'd recommend the book for "serious" and casual Lincoln buffs as well as non-buffs looking for an entertaining, funny, and insightful read.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Entertaining Meditation on the Meaning of History, May 6, 2007

By	Ray McConnell (Saginaw, MI United States) - See all my reviews

The above title could have come from a the mind of a "meatball" at one of those corporate workshops Andrew Ferguson so abhors! I recently read his first book, "Fools Names, Fools Faces," and, whereas the essays in that book could be very cutting, "Land of Lincoln," is just as funny, but much more reflective. Ferguson runs into a wide array of characters on his cross-country Lincoln quest, but he never takes a cheap shot at them for comedic effect. His humor is more nuanced, and, therefore, much more genuine. I especially enjoyed the parts where he described his interaction with his teen-aged children as he attempted to persuade them to spend part of their summer vacation traversing the "Lincoln Heritage Trail." This part, of course, was hilarious, but it pointed to a more serious concern shared by all parents who love history: will our children marinating in this media-saturated entertainment culture ever appreciate history like we do? I have been looking forward to purchasing this book for two years, ever since I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ferguson at a gathering in Washington DC. He was very cordial to me, and, when he found out I lived in Saginaw, Michigan, he retrieved an article from his office for me about Dr. Mudd of the Lincoln Assassination conspiracy. You see, Dr. Mudd's grandson lived in Saginaw and he spent most of his long life trying to gain a pardon for Dr. Mudd. I must also mention that the quality of Mr. Ferguson's writing is always excellent. In summary, I would recommend this fine book to all who love history from a unique perspective, presented in a well-written, most entertaining fashion!