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With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln Paperback – February 8, 2011
| Stephen B. Oates (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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“The standard one-volume biography of Lincoln.” —Washington Post
“Certainly the most objective biography of Lincoln ever written.” —David Herbert Donald, New York Times Book Review
The definitive life of Abraham Lincoln, With Malice Toward None is historian Stephen B. Oates's acclaimed and enthralling portrait of America's greatest leader. In this award-winning biography, Lincoln steps forward out of the shadow of myth as a recognizable, fully drawn American whose remarkable life continues to inspire and inform us today.
Oates masterfully charts, with the pacing of a novel, Lincoln's rise from bitter poverty in America's midwestern frontier to become a self-made success in business, law, and regional politics. The second half of this riveting work examines his legendary leadership on the national stage as president during one of the country's most tumultuous and bloody periods, the Civil War years, which concluded tragically with Lincoln's assassination.
- Print length544 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateFebruary 8, 2011
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.87 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100060924713
- ISBN-13978-0060924713
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
“With Malice toward None is an impressive performance. Full, fair, and accurate. . . . Certainly the most objective biography of Lincoln ever written. . . . Both because of its outstanding historical merits and because it so completely captures the contemporary mood, With Malice toward None is very probably going to [become] the standard one-volume life of Lincoln.” — Pulitzer Prize-winner David Herbert Donald, New York Times Book Review
“The most popular historical interpreter of Lincoln . . . Mr. Oates’s With Malice Toward None is the standard biography today. Its very likable Lincoln stands for liberty, and his story has continuity from the log cabin to Ford’s Theater. The book has many strengths, but how long it will endure depends on when, or whether, a historian with talents equal to those of Mr. Oates -- no mean requirement -- will come forth with a new biography.” — Gabor S. Boritt, New York Times Book Review
“The standard one-volume biography of Lincoln.” — Washington Post
“Here, in these pages, Lincoln is still alive....Not the god of the Lincoln Memorial, but a man struggling to remain himself under terrible burdens.” — Los Angeles Times
“A superb biography.” — Chicago Tribune
“Hailed as the best one-volume biography of Lincoln” — Boston Globe
From the Back Cover
The definitive life of Abraham Lincoln, With Malice Toward None is historian Stephen B. Oates's acclaimed and enthralling portrait of America's greatest leader. Oates masterfully charts, with the pacing of a novel, Lincoln's rise from bitter poverty in America's midwestern frontier to become a self-made success in business, law, and regional politics. The second half of the book examines his legendary leadership on the national stage as president during one of the country's most tumultuous and bloody periods, the Civil War years, which concluded tragically with Lincoln's assassination. In this award-winning biography, Lincoln steps forward out of the shadow of myth as a recognizable, fully drawn American whose remarkable life continues to inspire and inform us today.
About the Author
Stephen B. Oates (1936-2021) was a professor emeritus of history at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. His books include Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln. Oates has been awarded numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and Nevins-Freeman Award of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago for lifetime achievement in the field of Civil War studies.
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Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (February 8, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 544 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0060924713
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060924713
- Item Weight : 1.01 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.87 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #245,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #375 in American Civil War Biographies (Books)
- #883 in US Presidents
- #971 in U.S. Civil War History
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Stephen B. Oates is the author of sixteen books, including The Approaching Fury; With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln and Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., the latter two books winning, respectively, the Christopher Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award. They have been translated into several languages.
Oates was a consultant and "talking head" in Ken Burns's Civil War series on PBS, and is a recipient of the Nevins-Freeman Award of the Chicago Civil War Round Table for lifetime achievement in the field of Civil War studies. A teacher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he is now writing the concluding book of the Voices of Storm trilogy, about the years of Reconstruction, 1865-1877.
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This is a great book about a very complex man.
The author has done an astonishing job presenting to us the 16th President of the United States -- his convictions, his foibles, his habits, his mannerisms, the studied way he accrues facts, and the immoveable judgements he makes based on those facts.
Mr. Oates also involves us in the politics of the day:the rancor, the jealousies, the mood of the country in tumultuous times, and the ultimately the love of Americans for their president. We also see the Commander in Chief dealing with a recalcitrant, sometimes petty
Cabinet, Union Generals who won't fight and those who will.
We owe Mr. Oates many thanks for allowing our acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln. This is a wonderful book about extraordinary leader.
Top reviews from other countries
The book is a masterful recollection of his life as a boy, man, friend, father and President. You come to learn about what really made him tick, where he felt most comfortable, what he hated, and much more. I love how much detail the book puts into Lincoln's life before the White House, his jobs as rail splitter, shop merchant, business man, lawyer and his burgeoning political career. It is this early stage of life that Lincoln truly developed his ideologies, and these go on to inform his decisions and actions as President.
It details beautifully his resolve during the Civil War, how it impacted him, how it tormented him. I really got an idea of just how much of himself he lost during the conflict, he was the epitomisation of the term, 'War President', he spent hours reviewing war tactics, hours reviewing and building war tactics, hours sat in the telegraph department waiting for all important updates from the front. The book really walks you into his life during the War, at times I felt like I was there with him, hoping for said good news. I've seen some reviews criticise how much Oates writes about the Civil War but I disagree, the Civil War played a pivotol part in defining Lincoln for generations to come, it had to make up a significant part of the book.
It's not just a book about Lincoln either. It's a book about his wife Mary, his sons Robert, Tad and Willie, his best friend Josh Speed, Secretary of State Seward, his Commanding General Ulysses Grant, War Secretary Stanton and so on. The time and space that Oates gifts to these characters adds a further depth to Lincoln's story. The book at times reads like a thriller, you find yourself furiously flicking pages to find out how Lincoln navigated that particular political issue, or how it handled another slow general. His political acumen shines through perfectly in this book.
Importantly also, the book handles elements of Lincoln that many avoid, elements that call him a dictator who ignored Congress and the Supreme Court in exercising his war powers. Yes it's a fair criticism that must be answered and Oates does this well, he brilliantly articulates Lincoln's thinking during this testing time for the Union, that the interpretation of his war powers under the constitution gave him the ability to do all it took to save the Union. So often, it felt like Lincoln's thinking places him generations ahead of everybody else.
What really struck me too is just how much of the American populice really despised Lincoln during the Civil War, national opinion really waxed and waned, sometimes reaching dangerously high levels of discontent. One wonders how the Union didn't implode at times. But it was due to Civil War victories and astute political maneuvering by Lincoln that the Union stayed together and the book really depicts this well.
I'm going to close up the review now. When Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Boothe while viewing a production of 'Our American Cousin', I really felt the loss, I became endeared to him through the pages, so much so that I have my next Lincoln book on the way. Oates' writing style is excellent, so accessible, it looks like a 'slogger' but it really isn't, as I said, the book reads so well, like a thriller at times. I massively enjoyed this book and will be re-reading it soon. If you after an in-depth, readable and well informed life of Lincoln, this is your book, it sets the standard.
Thank you for reading.
I found it slow going for a long time, pretty much until the war starts. Interesting that the war started almost immediately Lincoln became president, and began because of the positive and carefully thought through decisions he took in response to Southerners who were beginning military activity because they thought Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery, even though this was in fact not at that time the case. It wasn't until the war was well advanced that he publicly adopted this position.
The war finally ends exactly as Lincoln's first term as president ends, and very shortly after winning a second term, he is assassinated.
In other words, at least according to this book, Lincoln's entire presidency was completely associated with the war and the end of slavery.
All this occupies the second half of the book. The first half gives a skimpy account of his early life, skimpy at least in that as a reviewer on Amazon.com has noted, he fails to account for Lincoln's hostility to his father, or his affection to his stepmother, a deficiency which may or may not be remedied by other biographies, I don't know.
It then moves on to his career as a lawyer in Illinois, and his early political life. This career is notable for Lincoln's care and thoroughness at arriving at decisions. He often risks appearing indecisive in order to take the time to ground his opinion on careful research. As President, he always gave cabinet ministers or generals a second chance before he sacked them, despite attracting floods of criticism.
The other feature of this book is how it details his immense forbearance with the enormous criticism which was directed at him in waves from almost everyone, including his closest political allies at one time or another. Remarkably, Lincoln though slow to make his mind up almost never changed it once made and as a result was able to steer his country through its greatest crisis successfully.
In view of the retrenchment of racism after his death, a retrenchment which took a century to be undone, I had thought his assassination a political tragedy for America as well as a personal one because I had assumed his continued presidency would have assured a saner reconstruction than subsequently occurred. However Oates makes it seem as if the guy was on his last legs physically, exhausted by his constant hard work from an early age and especially as president.
Another remarkable thing about Lincoln according to Oates is that as the title suggests, unlike almost all his peers, he almost never responded to his many critics emotionally, nor seemed to harbour grudges. indeed he seems to have been personally an extremely likeable man, and his personal life is beautifully drawn by the author, as are his fluctuating relationships with his colleagues in government and war. It is perhaps because of the care the author takes to sketch the environment Lincoln lived in that the early part is slow going : interesting as his many ventures were in the early days you feel nothing of great import is happening until, rather suddenly, he becomes President.
The book portrays Lincoln as a driven man who bettered himself against all odds. He never went to college but was able to school himself in the law and became a successful lawyer. In addition to his supreme gift for oration, Lincoln came across as deliberative, slow to anger/malice, ponderous and shy. He never seemed to rush into taking decisions.
The majority of the book is dedicated to the defining events of Lincoln's life, the American Civil War and the Emancipation of the Slaves. After taking up office, Lincoln formed a cabinet of strong-willed men, with differing political convictions and temperaments. Thereby, he (Lincoln) took advantage of the atmosphere of healthy competition and debate within his cabinet in order to inform his political positions.
What I really liked about the book was that it was not only about Lincoln. Stephen Oates dedicated much space to the key characters in Lincoln's life; his wife Mary, Secretary of War Cameron, Secretary of State Seward, his bosom friend Ed Baker, General McLelland and Senator Sumner. These portrayals were fleshed out to great detail, giving the reader an appreciation of the predilections, strengths and backgrounds of the people within Lincoln's circle.
Lincoln endured much grief throughout his life: the loss of two sons, his best friend and his parents. Through it all Lincoln displayed immense grace, dignity and a sense of destiny. What a man! He seems to have slowly come to the conclusion that slavery needed to be abolished in the US. Being a politician who needed to lead a diverse nation this is not surprising. However, when he came to the conclusion that the "Negro question" must be solved he stood his ground against formidable political foes.
I found his managerial style to be quite far-sighted, especially when it came to the handling of the war. He was never quick to find faults with his generals. For example, he very reluctantly fired General Mclelland even when it was clear that the general could not engage the enemy in a decisive battle. Instead Lincoln, chose to take the blame for his generals' failings. Even when it became clear that Sec of State Seward was openly ignoring Lincoln's office, Lincoln refused to take offence or malice. He preferred to retain Seward's skill in administering the war effort. This was one politician who tolerated dissent, What a lesson for today's dog-eat-dog ideologically constricted politicians!
There are some aspects of the book, which I did not like. The book is quite thin on Lincoln's early family life. His father Thomas and mother were sketchily portrayed. This may have been because Lincoln himself was ashamed of his "log-cabin" origins and never spoke much about it during his lifetime. Furthermore, in laying emphasis on the war, Mr Oates loses the reader in the details of the war. At some point, I skipped some 30 pages of the book, which gave a blow by blow account of each bout of political infighting during one Civil War campaign or the other. Giving such a detailed account of the Civil War battles made the tone of the book sound more academic and less engaging.
In conclusion, this is an excellent book. If you are interested in one of the greatest American leaders of all time, then Stephen Oates' book is as good a place to start. It paints the picture of an honest, driven, tragic visionary hero of humble origins, who, due to political expediency, vacillated on the key moral issue of his time but who stood up for his beliefs when the chips were down. Abraham Lincoln stepped up to the plate when it mattered most and shall be remembered in the annals of history as the leader who freed the slaves and changed the course of world history. Mr Oates' Without Malice does immense justice to that legacy and the man. I highly recommend this book.
It is still a fine introduction to the life and times of America's greatest president, though the comparative lack of attention on the Lincoln's cabinet relationships leads to a much less rich discussion of his presidency than Kearns Goodwin so brilliantly achieved. In particular the warmth of the friendship with Seward is not fully explored and there is no discussion of the attempt on Seward's life that parallelled the killing of Lincoln.
But there is still much to recommend this. It has a more detailed focus than Kearns Goodwin on Lincoln's youth and career before his achievement of a national profile with his opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act that led him to the presidency. And it is written in an engaging and laconic style that echoes Lincoln's own voice.


