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Title: Honor's Voice : The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln by Douglas L. Wilson ISBN: 0-375-70396-9 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 25 May, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A compelling detective story of the young Lincoln
Comment: This book is an excellent look at the formative years of Lincoln's life and a great example of how to do historical research using primary sources. Many of the events of Lincoln's early years are controversial, owing mainly to the lack of contemporary evidence. However, by looking at sources others have never used, and by applying a systematic approach to determining what account is most likely to be accurate, Wilson is able to clear up many of the mysteries surrounding Lincoln's early years.
The book deals with several main topics, Lincoln's education, his search for a job, breaking into politics, his relations with women, and his developing honor. The majority of the book deals with his first experiences with politics and his various problems with women during this time. The emphasis on his relations with women, and with Mary Todd (Lincoln) specifically, is important because this is one of the most controversial and least understood aspects of those years. After weighing all the evidence Wilson comes to the conclusion that Lincoln married Mary Todd because he felt honor bound to do so, and not because he truly loved her. In coming to this conclusion he falls under what Jean Baker has termed "the anyone but Mary" group, but one cannot argue with his evidence.
Throughout the book the main theme is how Lincoln's sense of honor develops over time, and how it was in fact a trait that needed developing, as evidenced by Lincoln's part in the Sampson's Ghost and Lost Township editorials. By the 1840s that honor has developed and become Lincoln's most defining trait.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Good Guide to Conflicting Evidence
Comment: Teachers in criminal justice classes, I am told, often stage mock crimes in their classrooms. In the middle of a lecture, for example, a bandit will barge in, threaten the students, and make off with the professor's wallet. The students, at first shocked but then relieved when told that it was a staged event, are then asked to describe the event. What did the suspect look like? How tall was he? What color hair did he have? What was he wearing? What did he say? Invariably, there are multiple answers to those questions. People saw different things. No one version of what occurred is totally accurate.
Wilson's book confronts that perennial problem of human perception. Though his 'transformation of Lincoln' plows familiar ground - how one solitary, unschooled backwoods man transformed himself into a national, albeit polarizing figure, through willpower, endurance, ambition, guts, and brains - his careful forensic method, as judge and jury of a multitude of competing facts and interpretations, makes this book a compelling tale, as much about how history is written as it is about how Lincoln evolved.
And this is why I disagree with the reviews that describe this book as long-winded, tough-sledding and over-detailed. In Honor's Voice, Wilson provides a valuable glimpse into the historian's bag of tricks. Wilson takes each of the iconic moments of Lincoln's life - his storied wresting match with Jack Armstrong, his self-education, his disastrous romance with Ann Rutledge - and peels apart the layers, examining the historical record as closely as possible, evaluating the claims of eyewitnesses and second-hand sources, and holding each up to scrutiny before making any assertions; and even then, he is admirably cautious. Wilson presents a lot of quotes, exactly as written, from contemporaries who witnessed, or claimed to have witnessed, crucial events in Lincoln's life, and asks: Is this the truth? Who could have benefit from enhancing the truth? Who was really there? What about the quote lends it authenticity, or falsity? Yes, the narrative covers the same event numerous times, but this is the price one pays of exactness. Like the criminal justice students who have competing recollections of a recent event, not one of Lincoln's contemporaries knows the whole truth. But taken together, one gets a more clear picture of what might have happened.
The risk, of course, is boredom and the frustration of dealing with multiple sources of the same event; but the reward is a new appreciation of Lincoln the man, as well as the historian's challenge of teasing out the facts in an era long since vanished.
Rating: 3
Summary: Painfully detailed but a useful picture of Lincoln emerges.
Comment: The bad points first...
Being a Linoln buff myself, but certainly not a scholar on the subject, I found this book to be a worthwhile addition to my library but one that is seriously flawed. The first chapter goes into painstaking detail about Lincoln's wrestling match with Jack Armstrong in New Salem. I think a wrestling historian would find it more useful than someone interested in our 16th president. Endless second and third-hand accounts of the match are analyzed in detail. And for what? No reliable conclusions can be drawn from these contradictory accounts. The first chapter could have been summarized in two words...who knows? And I'm not really sure who cares either. I found this chapter to be a bit bizarre.
My other criticism of the book is that it is very poorly organized, in my opinion. In fact, only the first chapter sticks to the topic of it's title. The rest of the book seems to be organized into chapters only for the purpose of giving the reader a needed break from the tedium. Sure, you will find something about Lincoln's relationship with women in the chapter entitled, "Women," but you will find just as much about this subject in just about any other chapter. And you will learn about his politics in the chapter about women, etc. It almost seems as if Mr. Wilson just pinned a title to the top of a page now and then without regard to what followed. This lack of structure also results in a great deal of repetition. The same quotes are repeated again and again and again which would not have been necessary if each chapter stuck with it's title subject. One hopes that this lack of organization is not a reflection of Mr. Wilson's research skills.
On the plus side, if you can wade through the book, which is tedious to the extreme at times, you may end up with a more textured view of Lincoln the man. The book can help one to fill in the blanks of Lincoln's life but it is almost entirely based on educated guesses and conclusions on Mr. Wilson's part. In a sense, the book is reminiscent of Gore Vidal's Lincoln. But such conjecture can be useful, of course if we are searching for that "ring of truth" to fill in the blanks.
All in all, I consider this to be a useful addition to my fairly extensive Lincoln library but I certainly would not recommend it as a first book about Lincoln by any means and I think Mr. Wilson would agree with that assessment. The author writes that the book is not intended for scholars, but I find it difficult to see why the person with a more casual interest in Lincoln would be interested in these endless details which really never reach a conclusion. The book is, however, instructive as to how incorrect information is passed on and accepted as fact by generations of historians.
This book asks more questions than it answers but, ironically, the overall result is a much better picture of Lincoln. I would recommend this book only to the serious Lincoln student.
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Title: The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln by Michael Burlingame ISBN: 0252020863 Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr (Pro Ref) Pub. Date: November, 1994 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography by William Lee Miller ISBN: 037540158X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 15 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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Title: Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Library of Religious Biography) by Allen C. Guelzo ISBN: 0802842933 Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: LINCOLN by David Herbert Donald ISBN: 068482535X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 05 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E., Jr. Neely ISBN: 0195080327 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: August, 1992 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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