I have about 100 books on Lincoln and this is one of the best, it draws on stories from some others but it is an easy and very good read for those who want incites into perhaps or greatest President as told by those who knew him and heard him speak.

As a person who has spent much time studying Lincoln and the Civil War, I found this book to be one of the most interesting books I've read. The author has done an excellent job of finding short, concise accounts of Lincoln. This is a book which you can go back to many times and re-read. This would be a great read for high school American History classes.

I have just read this book and I would say that the contents bring out the human side of the man most people do not know. Things that are not generally taught. I found it entertaining, full of interesting facts told by firsthand accounts. Read it & you will agree, I am sure....(VLS)

This is a fascinating book of letters to Abe Lincoln by people from all walks of life. Some are terribly moving as the one by the widow of a veteran asking for a referral. Some are eye openers filled with hate that are comical until one pauses to think of the consequences. There are even mundane letters such as the one from ex-president Buchanan asking for a set of his history books to be returned. In reading this book one can often be transposed to a different era, a different mindset, and a different century. This is the grist mill of history. I am so saddened that this book is out of print. Thank goodness I ordered my copy from Amazon.com about 1.5 years ago. If you can possibly get this volume somewhere grab it. Well worth your perusal.

I found "Dear Mr. Lincoln" to be facinating because it contains correspondence Lincoln received from the famous to the unknown; from the educated to the illiterate; from wealthy white men, to poor ex-slaves and women. It also includes letters from children, and many other people during Lincoln's era. Much of this material is funny, some sad, but always interesting. "Dear Mr. Lincoln" is a definite buy for serious Lincoln fans.

From the distant cousin who, based upon Abe's knowing him so well, "wulda thot I culd a gaht a job!" to the ministers who sought to pray to the political leaders who sought to have their advice taken to heart, this is a wonderful view of Civil War America. The letters are of course the focal point of the book. But it is what they say in their totality rather than individually that impresses. Lincoln heard from all facets of his nation. (And this was before e-mail and telephones!) He heard little of approval and much of dis-approval from critique to hatred. A great mass of mothers seeking draft exemptions, fathers wanting postmasters' jobs, and preachers seeking to show him the light bombarded the Presidential desk. Some were poignant. A few were even wise. All, in total, were America. Equally fascinating is the first portion of the book which is a thumbnail but thorough history of the Presidential "staff" which eventually grew to three people in number! A great book!

Lincoln on Democracy edited and introduced by Mario M. Cuomo and Harold Holzer is an anthology written by Lincoln, in his own words with essays by America's foremost Civil War historians. These include: Gabor S. Boritt, William E. Gienapp, Charles B. Strozier, Richard Nelson Current, James M. McPherson, Mark E. Neely, Jr., and Hans L. Trefousse.

I found this volume to be very valuable in understanding, not only Lincoln's psyche, but that of the country as a whole. Lincoln has been called one of the best writers among the American presidents, even though his delivery was not as dynamic. This unique anthology includes such well-known selections as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, but that is only the beginning. As there are equally inspiring speeches, letter, notes and diary entries. Not to mention a revealing dream that Lincoln wrote down for posterity.

"Lincoln on Democracy" documents Lincoln as an extraordinary leader, taking him from a local politician to a national leader in time of crisis. The reaffirmation of Lincoln's commitment to the ideas of liberty and the savior of the union.

This book is dedicated to the people of Poland as this volume was assembled at the request of the Solidarity teachers in a newly democratized Poland. There are seven chapters in this book dividing it into easily followed and logical order.

They are: "The People's Business" Lincoln and the American Dream 1832-1852

"All We Have Ever Held Sacred" Lincoln and Slavery
1854-1857

"Another Explosion Will Come" Lincoln and the House Divided 1858

"Right Makes Might" Lincoln and the Race for President 1859-1860

"Hour of Trial" Lincoln and the Union 1861

"Forever Free" Lincoln and Liberty 1862-1863

"For Us the Living" Lincoln and Democracy 1863- 1865

This is a fully annotated collection also containing an extensive chronology linking Lincoln's life and accomplishments with the world and national events with photograghs from various periods in his career. The essays are written extremely well and set the tone of each chapter making this volume compelling as we reexamine our republic with Lincoln as our guide for the time period of this book.

This is a great book for getting an overview of President Lincolns life in a chronological way. We learn how his thinking process develops as he encounters the diverse situations of his life and times. Through actual letters, speeches and business dealings we see the man. We find it is a man in the making. President Lincoln did not arrive full and complete in terms of philosophy. He developed his thesis of the rights of man as he lived the conflicts of his fellow citizens especially as it related to the slavery of the black man. A great book you must have in your personal library. A true resource for any student of civil rights and demorcacy in the western world. Makes a great gift for any student of history.
Respectfully submitted by;
Mark V. Aarssen
Canada

Mr. Cuomo has put together a rewarding synopsis of several of A. Lincoln's Speeches and Writings. He added his own editorial content to make us better understand Mr. Lincoln's thoughts. This volume is easy to read and the themes are current for the times. Highly Recommended.

This is an outstanding compilation of thoughtful and provocative essays offered by Judge Frank J. Williams. Anyone with an interest in Lincoln should add this volume to their library. Well written and lucid, Williams provides a highly balanced look at the motivations and actions of the 16th President, with a keen eye to historical accuracy, historiography, historical memory, and balance. Williams, like all good authors and historians recognizes that there will never be a definative word on his subject, but is unafraid to weigh in with his own venture into the fray. As a history teacher, with an abiding interest in Lincoln, I grade this effort a solid A!

As much as the title of this book states that people may be judging Lincoln it hardly gives that negative feel. Frank Williams has put together a very well written book which explores Lincoln's motivations, desires, thoughts and how he managed people. Williams brings us interesting insight into the man where myth sometimes tells the wrong story. Viewpoints on how Lincoln managed Union commanders, political opponents, slavery issues and people is really what this book covers. Williams treats his subject quite fairly showing both sides of the stories in which controvercy over Lincoln's actions have resided. This book was a quick read although very enjoyable. If you are a Civil War fan, you should consider this book as much is written. How Lincoln handled popular generals such as McClellan, Meade, Hooker, Burnside and others was very interesting!

The series of debates in Illinois between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 campaign for the U.S. Senate are one of those legendary political encounters of which everyone has heard but few have gone back and actually read. However, since Lincoln never kept any of his papers prior to winning the Presidency, we do not have autograph copies of his Cooper Union or House Divided speeches, let alone his handwritten notes of the great debates. The claim made by Harold Holzer for his edition is that this is the first complete, unexpurgated text of the debates to be published. Holzer notes that what we have relied upon previously for debate transcripts were copies taken down by stenographers for intensely partisan newspapers. Holzer's hypothesis is that the editors and transcribers for these newspapers would improve the remarks by their own candidates while leaving those of his opponent alone. Supporting his idea are the unedited texts of the debate he uncovered. Of course, Holzer provides his own useful additions to the texts of the seven debates in the form of extensive notes (often covering the audience reactions as detailed by various papers). As a two-time winner of the Lincoln/Barondess Award of the Lincoln Round Table and the first Award of Achievement given by the Abraham Lincoln Association for his hundreds of articles and books on Lincoln, Holzer is certainly in a position to make such judgments.

You should be warned that reading these debates will both exhilarate and depress you. These debates lasted three hours and forced the candidates to develop comprehensive proposals and to respond in detail to the attacks of their opponent. The thought of Bore or Gush trying to talk from notes for even fifteen minutes is enough to make you laugh, cry or bang you head against the wall. Reading the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in this or any other edition, will certainly give you more of a feel for the issue of Slavery circa 1858 than you will ever get from a history book from which you may get a few choice quotes (what the back cover would call "volleys"). For those of us who want access to primary documents, who read court decisions rather than let talking heads on the tube tell us what they think things might possibly mean, books like this are a great joy. For those who admire Lincoln, the right man in the right place at the right time at the worst moment in our country's history, the Lincoln in these debates who is speaking extemporaneously from notes rather than reading from a carefully crafted and fine tuned text is arguably the closest we get to the real man.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates have justly been celebrated in American history as one of the milestones in Abraham Lincoln's rise to the presidency. However, Lincoln's own well-meaning assembling of the received text of these debates used only transcripts from papers friendly to either candidate--transcripts which, Harold Holzer argues, were smoothed over and revised by reporters eager to make "their" candidate look good. Holzer insists that we must go to the transcripts of Lincoln's speeches by the pro-Douglas paper, and vice-versa, to get a true sense of what was said off the cuff by the debaters. His edition portrays vividly not only the high-sounding rhetoric of Douglas and the noble ideals of Lincoln, but also the hesitations and mis-speakings of both men. In this way, the reader gets a better sense of what it was like to be in the crowd listening as history was being made

Given the expanding public interest in the American Civil War that began with the centenary in the 1960s, this book has been a long time coming. Louis Prang's series of chromolithographs are representative of a period in commercial art that he helped to pioneer, and which lasted until the first decade of the twentieth century. With the style established, everything from farm implements to insurance were advertised with heroic scenes from the nation's history. In more recent times it has been almost impossible to see the complete set of pictures outside obscure collections. Editor Harold Holtzer gives interesting insights into Prang, his artists, and their technique.
Prang marketed his prints in much the same way that our contemporary military artists do. Apart from fashionable gallery openings any military history publication will have several advertisements for prints of battle scenes and historical vignettes. Modern painters focus on period accuracy in microscopic detail and brilliant color. Although Prang was concerned with accuracy some small errors found their way into his work. But anyone who studies that period beyond the superficial, must be drawn into these old pictures. By this process we enter the late Victorian parlor of the veteran and his family.
The charm of the lithographs lies in their mood and atmosphere, which was due in part to the lithographic process itself, and also to the impressionistic influences of the 1880s. The quality of southern summer dust predominates throughout the series. Coal and powder smoke combine in operatic storm clouds. Sunset tones provide nostalgic lighting for the memories of a generation's youth that had already passed into legend. It is not only facsinating to see the events that that generation passed through, but also how they remembered them.

Prang's Civil War Pictures gathers the complete battle chromos of Louis Prang under one cover for the first time, creating an outstanding documentation of the original works of art which inspired Prang's prints. Pictures and accompanying background text provide fine insights and descriptions for both newcomers to Prang's works and those with some prior familiarity with Prang, but not his models.

Mark Neely, Harold Holzer, and Gabor S. Boritt effectively collaborate to present a pioneering and seminal examination of the popular lithographs and engravings cherished by Southerners during and after the Civil War in The Confederate Image: Prints Of A Lost Cause. These were the images in southern popular culture that helped to sustain and revive a post-confederacy identity following the collapse of the Confederacy at the end of the war. It is one of history's ironies that these images were actually crafted by Northern artisans. The principle focus of The Confederate Image is on the prints of three prominent southern Civil War figures (Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson) as well as offering informative discussions on prints of other significant Confederates as well as the contributions of the short-lived "Southern Illustrated News". The Confederate Image is a highly recommended and unique addition to Civil War studies and of considerable interest to students of American popular culture and art history.

Harold Holzer, Gabor S. Boritt, and Mark E. Neeley Jr. effectively collaborate to present The Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln And The Popular Print. Their work, profusely enhanced with period photographs (as well as iconography immediately following his assassination) documenting how popular prints served to make Lincoln's image of the popular and political culture of his day. An original and highly recommended work, The Lincoln Image is a impressive study of painstaking and exhaustive scholarship that will be greatly appreciated by academia, Lincoln studies supplemental curriculum reading lists, and students of 19th Century American political history.

I had bought Harold Holzer's 1993 book "Dear Mr. President" and enjoyed it tremendously. That book dealt with the mail that ordinary and famous people from around the world sent to Abraham Lincoln during his term as U.S. President. Now, Holzer has produced a sequel book, "The Lincoln Mailbag", which contains even more letters written to Lincoln. A large number in this new volume consists of mail Lincoln never even saw, such as correspondence from black Americans. These two books by Holzer offer a fresh, new insight into the world of President Lincoln which is far more interesting than the ordinary, standard Lincoln biographies which seem to pop up every 6 months or so.

This compilation of primary source materials is arranged inchronological chapters, with the table of contents acting as anoutline of what is to come. An excellent introduction creates a vivid context for the period. Many pieces are not in their entirety, but excerpted. Holzer's vibrant writing is a fascinating mix of biography and political history that provides setup and commentary for each selection to put the piece in context. A wide range of samples includes poems, letters, and speeches (both famous and lesser known). The editor's authority of and admiration for his subject is evident and the volume is well arranged; unfortunately, some poor editing choices detract from the text. Photos are abundant, well-selected, and well-placed; however, in two instances the same picture was obviously cropped and reused with a different caption. Photo credits are inconsistent. Sometimes they appear under the picture, sometimes they don't. A complete list of photo credits appears at the end. Including the original captions along with the page numbers would have been a nice touch. Because this is not the first book one would start with if one were to do a report on Lincoln, a list of recommended books would have been a welcome addition. According to the credits, Holzer only consulted one source for this book. While he is the author of 14 books (8 about Lincoln), one would think he would mention other sources - even his own. An incredibly detailed chronology will thrill teachers struggling with curriculum frameworks. Not a necessity, but a solid addition to collections where there is a demand for presidential biography, political/government history, or civil rights information.