Oscar Handlin (1915–2011)

This is one of those books I picked up in a library sale for twenty-five cents or something like that. Not sure what called me to pull it off the shelf where it stood with others in the Library of American Biography series. Oscar Handlin is generally remembered as an historian of ethnic, immigrant, and urban American; Lillian Handlin is best known for her series on liberty in America. A biography of Abraham Lincoln seems out of place on their C.V.s Written in 1980 it is somewhat dated. This book was not intended to be a scholarly contribution, but as an introductory synthetic work that tied together existing historiography for students and the layperson. They emphasized religion and Lincoln's evolving concepts of necessity and a divine being. They depict Lincoln as human being who struggled making decisions, and who often delayed or prevaricated when he saw no clear answer, policy, or solution. While this book has some merits, there has been some interesting Lincoln scholarship in the almost forty years since it was published.… (más)