Word: lincoln
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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These words made a lasting impression of Donald. In his biography of Lincoln, Donald recreates the events of Lincoln's life using Lincoln's own letters and papers, including newly discovered records of Lincoln's legal practice. Donald also quotes Lincoln extensively from letters and articles written by people who saw and talked with Lincoln. The Lincoln that emerges from Donald's careful reconstruction is a charismatic, clever, hard working and always pragmatic leader...
Certainly none of Donald's readers will be surprised by Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential election, the outbreak of civil war or by the assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. The facts of Lincoln's life have been drummed into us from grammar school onwards. What may surprise the reader is Lincoln's active sense of humor, physical strength and youthful spirit and vigor...
Donald cites many examples of Lincoln's reliance on humor to get a point across and to diffuse a difficult or awkward situation. Donald describes how Lincoln used an anecdote to convey his wish that Jefferson Davis and other high-ranking leaders of the Confederacy be allowed to flee the country. He could not state this openly. As president he would be obligated to hunt down and execute the traitors, but as a man believing in "malice towards none, charity for all," he just wished they would disappear. Lincoln told Sherman a story "about a man who declined a drink...
Donald's biography is at its best when recounting details like this. His style is factual and largely objective. As he states, his intention is to "explain rather than to judge." Donald's style disappoints only at the most significant and emotional points in Lincoln's life. For example, when Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg address, Donald does not reprint the speech, even though it is only 272 words long...
Donald's scholarship is excellent; hardly a paragraph is without a quote from Lincoln or a contemporary of Lincoln's who dealt closely with him. However Donald's emphasis on documentation makes it difficult for the reader to forget, even momentarily, that this a historical biography. The reader never feels really inside the President's world and sharing what the president experiences...