Updates on the the greatest President, politician, war leader and emancipationist that the U.S., democratic governments and the world has ever seen. The 11 essays are made by an elite group of historians of the 21st century who add new looks on the life and times of Lincoln. ( )

Deconstructing the Great Emancipator

Could there possibly be more about Abraham Lincoln that we didn't already know? This collection of essays edited by Eric Foner attempts to add to the lengthy amount of scholarship already out there on Lincoln. Of the 11 essays included, I would say that less than half really had something intriguing to say about the man.

Foner's essay "Lincoln and Colonization" is probably the best of the lot. Focusing on the plan to relocate the emancipated slaves in Africa, Foner shows that Lincoln believed in the idea as something more than just an example of Lincoln's pragmatism but something he really believed in early before waning on it after releasing his now famed Emancipation Proclamation. Sean Wilentz's essay "Abraham Lincoln and Jacksonian Democracy" is also good, comparing Lincoln's early whiggery with his Jacksonian tendencies (incidentally Wilentz has just released his own collection of edited essays on Lincoln). The last essay I will mention worth reading is David W. Blight's essay on the use and abuse of Lincoln's thoughts, speeches, and politics in both academic scholarship but also in everyday public memory.

Overall, I would recommend this book because the half dozen or so essays worth reading here are not available anywhere else. The book is not biographical, but rather a series of unique perspectives on one of the most famous men in the history of the U.S. and the world. ( )

This is a collection of essays that update the scholarship on Lincoln. Like most such collections, some essays are more interesting than others. Topics include Lincoln's use of images, his religion, his family, his attitudes to slavery and race, and more.

Lincoln is obviously a figure of wide fascination, since there have been so many books written about him. It seems odd that there are still new things to say, but there are. Some sources have been found recently, and Lincoln studies have benefited from recent social history. Recommended. ( )