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) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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From AudioFile
When journalist Andrew Ferguson revisits the places that fostered his boyhood admiration of Abraham Lincoln, he discovers an assortment of opinions as disparate as the nation itself. Ferguson blends myths and facts in a friendly, unassuming tone, and Patrick Lawlor provides a folksy, energetic narration. Ferguson offers both sides of arguments that still rage around Lincolns policies--over 140 years after his death. Lawlor delivers them with the appropriately sardonic words scholars differ. From the Sons of the Confederacy in Richmond protesting a Lincoln statue to the 175 Lincoln impersonators in Indiana, from a leadership conference on Lincolns management style to the Disneyfication of the Lincoln Library in Springfield--Fergusons keen observations and Lawlors witty narration express multiple views of the president who preserved the Union. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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