ABE

A premier scholar of American culture and literature tackles the vast, seething currents that make up the life and times of Abraham Lincoln.

The winner of the Bancroft Prize, among many other honors, Reynolds is one of our most significant historians, and he is up to the enormous task of creating a cultural biography of the man who would become America's most recognizable president. As the author engagingly shows, Lincoln’s character was greatly influenced by the many "roiling" conflicts of the mid-19th century. Unlike David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln (1995), among numerous other biographies, in which Lincoln is portrayed as the “quintessential self‑made man,” Reynolds offers a different take, one that is consistently fun to read. “Lincoln, far from distanced from his time, was thoroughly immersed in it,” he writes. “When he entered the presidency, he was neither inexperienced nor unprepared. To the contrary, he rede­fined democracy precisely because he had experienced culture in all its dimensions—from high to low, sacred to profane, conservative to radi­cal, sentimental to subversive.” The author moves fluidly through the eras of Lincoln's life, providing countless telling details that help readers understand how his surroundings shaped his extraordinary character—e.g., his frontier roots, voracious reading, love of mimicry, phenomenal memory, and delight in language, from rough jokes to Shakespeare. According to Reynolds, whose research is staggering, Lincoln was an intellectual sponge, and he made use of his broad knowledge and experiences to help his law clients; in his speeches, which were often met with uproarious laughter; and in his basic respect for and honesty in dealing with people of different backgrounds. Reynolds believes that Lincoln was fully prepared for the presidency—his life's ambition, as well as his wife's—and due to his immersion in contemporary culture ("navigating the isms" of his time), he was able to take on the many conflicts of his day and unite the nation.

Long but never boring. A fine cultural history and biography that is accessible to all readers, especially students.