Lincoln
by New York Times bestseller and Two-Time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, David Herbert Donald
I just started reading this wonderful book last night and wow, first off, let me tell you... if any of us lived back then, we would have been bear food, seriously... if nothing else, reading books like this humbles me and makes me realize how much we have to be thankful for, and also how much we take for granted.
Donald brilliantly depicts Lincoln's gradual ascent from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to the ever- expanding political circles in Illinois, and finally to the presidency of a country divided by civil war.
I wanted to find a biography on Lincoln that went beyond the civil war, or slavery or even the presidency, and into the heart of the man. Lincoln always intrigued me, and there was always this aura of controversy surrounding him, so I needed to know more.
Publishers Weekly- 'Throughout his life, according to Donald, Lincoln believed his destiny
was controlled by some larger force or "higher power." This conviction
generated both an underlying fatalism and a pragmatic approach to
problem-solving. If one approach?or one general?failed, another could be
tried. Although the information available to Lincoln was often
significantly limited by modern standards, bold plans based on a prior
reasoning were foreign to his thought process. Instead, it was Lincoln's
ability to respond to events and actions that brought the U.S. through
its greatest crisis and established the matrix for successful, if
imperfect, reunification.'
