Although at times the essays in this do not always focus directly on Lincoln, in one he is compared to Bismark, they all reflect the greatness of the man and his post in the Amercan Civil War. This is a must have for those interested in political control of the military, nation building, and or Lincoln.

"Lincoln the War President" presents seven essays, five of which are by Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, that focus specifically on Lincoln's execution of the Civil War. In "The Shadow of a Coming War," Robert V. Bruce starts the collection off with a fascinating look a the premonitions of civil war that haunted the American republic since the independence was declared, including Lincoln's reluctance to accept war as a real possibility. James M. McPherson's essay "Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender" catalogues Lincoln's brilliance as a "national strategist," dealing with not only military but also political and economic concerns as well. David Brion Davis looks at "The Emancipation Movement" in terms of both its promising goals and its disappointing results. In "One Among Many: The United States and National Unification," Carl N. Delger considers the Civil War as a successful attempt at true national unification, offering the counter-examples of Italy, Germany and Switzerland. Kenneth M. Stampp's essay, "One Alone? The United States and National Self-determination," explores the issue of self-determination and how the Southern struggle for independence compares to other historical examples, including the Eastern Europe after the Soviets. Not surprisingly, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. considers a historical analogy in "War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt," looking at how the pair clearly went beyond the limits of the Constitution in trying to defend the nation and the idea of freedom. Finally, Gabor S. Boritt's essay "War Opponent and War President," traces Lincoln's transformation from a Congressman denouncing the Mexican War, to the war president who wanted the Confederate Army destroyed, to a leader speaking out for reconciliation.

"Lincoln the War President" is certainly a thoughtful collection of essays that are enhanced by a concerted effort to put Lincoln's situation and actions in context, trying to keep an eye on the "big picture." In that regard the comparisons to other times and places are useful for helping history students appreciate Lincoln's virtues. While this is a book that students of Lincoln and Civil War buffs will enjoy, it should prove just as interesting to casual students of American History. The arguments it presents would certainly be provocative for both high school and college students to consider. Consequently, these essays would provide teachers with great supplementary material for teaching about Lincoln and the Civil War.

The author concentrates on events in the year 1857 to illustrate how America got from there to the Civil war. Featuring such landmark events as the Dred Scott decision of the supreme court, the ineptness of the Buchanan administration, and the financial panic, Stampp attempts to show how this year was a turning point in our history. The problem is that he attempts to do so in a vacuum, ignoring events that went before and after, so that the view is somewhat distorted. All the same, it shows many events that are unfamiliar to the reader and enlightens on how we entered, and could have avoided, a major internal conflict only four years later.

America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink by Kenneth M. Stampp is a work on how the nation was in 1857, a pivotal year, where sectional conflict spun out of control. The Civil War is just four years in the distance and the mood of the nation is of unrest and there are forces that are plummeting the nation toward disaster.

James Buchanan, the President at the time, throws his support on the wrong side of the Kansas Statehood issue, in New York City there are bank closures, unemployment starts to skyrocket, and the Supreme Court, in a fit of judicial activism, hands down the Dred Scott decision. We see the proslavery and antislavery groups taking a more serious attempt to win favor with the Congress. The Mormon Utah Teritory can't have Brigham Young as their governor.

All this turmoil splits the Democratic party in two. Stephen Douglas splits the party against James Buchanan, repudiating and humiliating the president, which further devastated the Democrats, forcing the Untied States closer to the Civil War. This book is interesting and told with a flowing and well documented prose that is narrated with clarity.

I found that once you start the book, the author takes you to this unsettling year and makes you believe that you are actually there. With political frauds and urban gangs making the experience real, the author brings us to a time, in the nation's history, where William Walker can conquer Nicaragua and make in a slave state. This book opens ones eyes to the era where crime and corruption were attempting to take the country and rebellion wasn't far behind.

This is a good read to the prelude of events leading upto one of the Civil War and we get to see the country's mindset, something very hard to project, but the author seems to convey it quite well.

Kenneth Stampp, one of the country's most distinguished historians, focuses on the pivotal year of 1857. The new president comes into office as a reconciliation Democrat, pledged to unite the country, with his party in firm control of Congress. Many predict that the new Republican Party will wither away in the calmer times ahead. Instead of that, events in Kansas, the Dredd Scott case, the panic of 1857, and struggle within the Democratic Party between Northerners, Unionists and Fire Eaters (proto-Secessionists) wreck the party and leave the Republicans with a clear road to the White House. The President's rigid response and limited point of view leave his party in ruins. The future seems to belong to the radical Republicans and the Disunionist South.

The book is quite well written, and flows like a suspense novel, even though you know how it will end. I read most of "1857" in one sitting, eager to see what would happen next. "Nation on the Brink" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the year which it appeared,but lost out in a very strong field.

Another reviewer complained that Stampp centered his argument on 1857 and neglected things which came before. That is the focus of the book, which is not an introduction to U.S. history. I don't believe that too much background is required, but David Potter's "Impending Crisis" is a good book if you want to study the 15 years before the war, and would provide a good companion to "Nation on the Brink".

Finally, it should be noted that Stampp is reluctant to draw conclusions, spending most of his time reporting the events of the year-- perfect for people who know a little about the era.

I can tell that reviewers like Tyler Smith below like to read books that tell them what they want to hear. Among historians, Stampp is well-known for his one-sided telling of history. I've read many of his books, and I don't recall him ever having anything positive to say about the South. He is biased, plan and simple. So go ahead and believe all this 'mumbo-jumbo' he spouts out if you care to, but you won't be knowing what real history was.

First, he doesn't even attempt to an explanation of why Reconstruction was deemed necessary 2 years AFTER the Civil War, and not immediately after. He totally avoids touching the 'hot stove' subject of why, after fighting a bloody war to keep the Southern States from leaving the Union (so we are told), that after bringing the Southern States back in the Union (fact because all Southern states voted to ratify the 13th Amendment) did the Union decide to put them out of the Union again by taking away their position as states and making them military districts under Marshall law? My friends, could it be that the Federalists in the North who were within inches of obtaining their real purpose (i.e. full empowerment of a centralized Federal gov't which they had wanted ever since the Revolution) discovered that having the South as States was a double-edged sword, and that all the Southern states, along with Oregon, Ohio, and New Jersey were totally opposed to the 14th Amendment. And that the only way to get it passed was to remove statehood from the Southern States? And also to conduct 'skulldudgery' and intrigue against the two senators from New Jersey who still caused them to be 2 votes short? Read the resolution that the New Jersey state legislature passed and sent to Congress in response to the 'trumped' up accusations against their 2 duly elected Senators just so they could be disciplined and de-seated so that the governor of New Jersey (himself in favor of the 14th Amendment) could appoint his own two 'hand-picked' temporary Senators who he knew would vote FOR the 14th Amendment. That resolution did everything but call the US Senate a bunch of crooks and scalawags!

And giving the blacks the right to vote being the reason for Reconstruction?! HA! This is really a joke! On second thought, this might just be accurate, but not in the context presented by Stampp. Sure, the northerners wanted the black vote, but not because of some ideological and altruistic ideal, but rather simply because the black vote could be 'bought' just like it is today. Blacks were promised, by northern agents sent down south that if they voted like they were told, that they would be bossing the white man and own all his land within the year or so! So, yes, the northerners wanted the blacks to vote. But is this because they cared so much for the black man? NO indeed. Blacks themselves (if you read the Slave Narratives wherein over 2000 former slaves were interviewed by the government in the 30's), they were 'just turned out to pasture like cattle'. They couldn't read, they didn't know where to go, didn't know what to do. For years, they had been told everything to do, and now they were immediately freed in a very inhumane and unorganized way. Many of them almost faced starvation along with the white population in the years following the war. Abe Lincoln himself, when asked what was to become of the blacks who were now free, answered 'Well, let them root hog or die'. It is my belief that this is the source of the reason blacks are still suffering today! Even after the war, mother's had to 'bound out' their children to live and work for someone as basically that person's slave for $1 a month. Every month, these mothers would go by each farm where their children lived and collect the month's dollar. If slavery had been dismantled (as many Southerner's were in favor off, by the way) in a gradual and regulated way, the I firmly believe that the black community wouldn't be still suffering so much today. They could have received educations and skills and assimilated into society in a more organized and humane fashion.

Whites were humiliated, treated like crap, their land taken away right before their eyes. They were disenfranchised and defenseless and Mr. Stampp has the gaul to blame the South for forming groups like the KKK (not like the KKK today, mind you)? He has so drastically distorted these times that it is pathetic. No, it is political and historical 'correctness', that's what it is. Just more of the fact that 'to the victor goes the writing of history'. In short, Mr. Stampp is way WRONG, and if you buy into the version he gives in this book, then you WILL NOT (for good or bad) know what the real history was. By God, at least the South (during the war) didn't have to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, suspend the 1st Amendment by shutting down all newspapers and throwing the owners in jail who didn't print just what Seward wanted them to. No one in the South issued a warrent for the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (Taney) just to shut him up. No one in the South imprisoned the grandson of Francis Scott Keyes just because he was a member of the Maryland legislature and was going to vote for secession. No duly elected Southern representative got tried before a military court and banished from the country because he wasn't saying the right things (Clement Vallandigham, rep from Ohio). The South didn't blatantly violate its solemn oath to armistices at both Ft. Sumter and Ft. Pickens in Pensacola, FL just to get a war started either! And the South didn't have top generals and a president that by today's standards (and probably those of that time too if the truth be known) could be convicted of war crimes against civilians (Lincoln, Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman I'm talking about)! No, when I read books like this one, it makes me madder than heck, and so many people swallow it 'hook, line, and sinker' and are too narrow minded to even attempt to look at the other side of the story. It's called 'brainwashing' in Russia.

This book is not and it does not pretend to be an in-depth analysis of all relevant aspects of Reconstruction or a detailed narrative of all of the events that took place in this period. Rather, it is an excellent summary of the revisionist scholarship about Reconstruction that gained currency in the '50s and '60s, and it is essential reading for anyone interested in this era of history.

The Dunning view of Reconstruction, which had almost universal scholarly and popular acceptance from the turn of the 20th Century until the '50s, held that rapacious and vindictive Radical Republicans hijacked the Reconstruction process from the just and magnanimous policies of Andrew Johnson and installed in the South state governments dominated by unscrupulous and incompetent white carpetbaggers and scalawags. These state governments were monuments to misgovernment and corruption, and the entire region (indeed, the entire country) breathed a collective sigh of relief when the white "redeemers" finally forced them out of office. The black freedmen were portrayed as ignorant, infantile, incapable of self-government, and prone to political and economic manipulation in this account of Reconstruction.

Revisionist scholars, beginning as early as 1909 with W.E.B. DuBois seminal paper about the subject but really not gaining momentum until the '50s, held that the Dunning school was substantially in error about the progress and nature of Reconstruction, and that this error was largely caused by bald racial prejudice. While the Radical Republicans did have crass economic motives, they honestly believed that the freedmen ought to have civil and political rights. While the Reconstruction state governments were often corrupt and incompetent, they were not out of the ordinary for state governments of the time, and the redeemer governments were frequently as bad or worse. Despite the corruption and the base motivations that did exist, much was accomplished during Reconstruction that should inspire pride: the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution, which guaranteed blacks civil and political rights; the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875, which guaranteed blacks the equal use of public accomodations and which provided the Federal government with the legal basis to prosecute those who would deny the black man his civil rights; the institution of truly republican governments in the former Confederacy; the beginning of the reconstruction of the South's infrastructure, which had been largely destroyed by the Civil War; and the foundation of such worthwhile institutions as state-supported schools.

Stampp does an admirable job of summarizing both the historiography of Reconstruction and the revisionist view of it. His prose may be somewhat dry at times, but nevertheless it is lucid and engaging in its totality. The key merit of this book is not, however, its groundbreaking scholarship -- indeed, there is nothing groundbreaking about this book -- or its literary style. This has been an enormously influential book because it makes revisionist scholarship about Reconstruction accessible to the masses. In so doing, it has performed the invaluable task of popularizing the revisionist conclusions about Reconstruction, thus making popular acceptance of our later-day Reconstruction, the Civil Rights movement, more readily attainable.

As wonderful and influential as this book is, it is not without its shortcomings. Stampp does an insufficient job of citing his sources. This is, in part, because this book is largely the written and polished version of lectures about Reconstruction that he has given over the years; unfortunately, understanding why there are so few citations does not excuse it. His ending bibliographical essay, while very useful, ultimately does not take the place of detailed in-text citations, and his book suffers for it.

Secondly, his depiction of the freedman leaves something to be desired. One of the great modern-day complaints about the Dunning school of Reconstruction is that it does not treat Reconstruction-era blacks as actual agents in Reconstruction history. They have no will, and they are not actors in the drama. Rather, they are acted upon. Stampp certainly does not share the racist assumptions of the Dunning scholars that he seeks to replace, but he does share with them the assumption that the black man was not a prime actor in this story. It is rather amazing to me that Stampp discusses the freedman as incessantly as he does and yet fails to talk much about him.

Neither of these two criticisms should take that much away from this otherwise excellent book. Read it as an introduction to the era, and treasure it for its salutary historical influence.

Call this effort from the great historian Reconstruction deconstruction. He deconstructs the notion, all too lazily accepted even today, that Reconstruction was a failed political movement, the only accomplishment of which was pocket-lining by Carpetbaggers from the North.

Far from it, Stampp convincingly argues. While he does not deny that the Radical Reconstructionists had a political agenda that included punishing the South and forcing through a pro-industrial, high-tariff program that a populist South was bound to oppose, he also points out Reconstruction wrought many positive changes, including bringing the newly freed African-American into the political process.

Stampp also is able to show the social programs launched by the Reconstructionists under the aegis of the Freedmen's Bureau were necessary in a South that was all too eager after the war to force black citizens into a new servitude. For example, the federal officials were instrumental in monitoring court proceedings in the South, ensuring that justice was served for all citizens, not just those holding money and political power.

The reasons for Reconstruction's demise have been well documented, and Stampp does not shy from acknowledging the obvious instances of corruption and soaring taxes. But he points out that in the decades following the end of the war, corruption was hardly unique to southern governments and that tax increases were to be expected in states and local communities whose infrastructures had been badly damaged by war.

Finally, Stampp reminds us, lest we forget, that Reconstruction failed because of a determined effort by diehard white supremacists and secret organizations such as the Klan. This effort was best characterized by the Mississippi Plan of 1875, in which anti-Reconstructionists set out openly to ensure that black citizens would not make it to the polls to vote. This perversion of democracy spelled the end until the 1950s, essentially, of efforts by the U.S. to achieve political and social equality for blacks.

This is essential reading for students of American history. It represents an important contribution to the literature that illuminates this country's self-inflicted racial problems.

Sure, just another book that on one hand tells us that only a small minority of Quaker 'fanatics' were abolitionists, and that the war was over expansion and not slavery, and then the next minute have us all believe that Union troops faught and died to end slavery when in many of their hometowns there were laws that forbid blacks, Indians, and mulatooes from staying in town after sundown. If you believe that people died for this, then you need to be reading bedtime stories. The war was fought over MONEY, POWER, and caused by disagreement between Constitutional Federalists and Jeffersonians. Even the Supreme Court ruled that secession was allowed under the Constitution (in 1862 I believe), but in their ruling said basically that 'this is our ruling, but to no avail, because the issue is being decided on the battlefields as we speak'.

some drivel, some repetitive and others stunning with fresh insight. Impossible to characterize as biased because of the variety of sources. What is called the "American Civil War" is a complex event which is difficult to untangle from all that preceded or followed it. The self-rightousness, aggrandizing commercial motives of the North were often masked as moral crusades and the theme emerged time and time again as I read. I would have to add this as a "must read" for anyone who is serious about scholarship of the period.