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Summary: Still fighting the Civil War
Review: I have read only parts of this book and I don't intend to subsidize conservative propaganda by buying it. But let's see if we can agree on a few facts:1) Slavery was an awful institution and should have been abolished (could this have been done without war?) 2) Lincoln was NOT an abolishionist but he opposed extending slavery into the new states entering the union (this was why the South was willing to go to war after Lincoln was elected) 3) The South started the Civil War at Fort Sumpter - not Lincoln. 4) Mr. Dilorenzo is NOT an historian but an economist and is clearly out of his element in trying to write a book about Lincoln.
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Summary: School Teachers Must Buy This Book
Review: As a history teacher, this book is a Godsend for me. I have already garnered much or most of the facts on Lincoln that are documented in this accurate work. The benefit of The Real Lincoln is its condensation of factual information on President Lincoln into one reference work. The assembled facts in T.R.L. are easily verified for honest students of history by reading transcripts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and other primary sources in the reference departments of any significant public library. Do not take my word for it. Do it. This well-documented history book is a valuable reference for any school teacher. It is a must for those who wish to teach American history rather than Lincoln mythology.
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Summary: The war to end slavery?
Review: I have no interest in reading this book. The author is incorrect in conveying that the civil war was fought to end slavery. The civil war was clearly fought to keep the states from seceding from the Union. Freeing the slaves was a strategic maneuver to weaken the confederate army.
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Summary: a Sudents Must read book
Review: Anyone that seriously studies American History, the Civil War, Politics, or the American social-economic system should read this book. Solidly backed up by countless documents, the author gives you the hard truth about Lincoln, and the Civil War. Many of us know, that as state after state secceded from the Union in 1860, Lincoln sat in his home at Gallitan, Illinois, not making one speech, as the incoming President should have done, to try and prevent this. Reading Mr. Dilorenzo fact based book, explains why. Heavily referenced, with hundreds of sources, the facts speak for themselves. My only complaint--it is not out as an AUDIO book yet, I've found myself going back to the book to verify many times since. An Excellent book, very hard to put down.
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Summary: The Rest of the Story
Review: In The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln , His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, Thomas J. DiLorenzo reveals a side of Lincoln that is not commonly known by the American People. DiLorenzo states that "the great emancipator" began the Civil War with intentions to create a stronger government and not to free the African Americans held in captivity as slaves. He criticizes Lincoln's motivation during the Civil War and attempts to assassinate the legend of Lincoln as Booth did the actual president. This book seemed enlightening yet I found it hard to read such harsh criticism about a man that I hold as an American Hero.
DiLorenzo argues that Lincoln's whole purpose of the Civil War was for "internal improvements" and to follow Henry Clay and his "American System". This contradicts almost every American's belief that Lincoln began the Civil War to free all enslaved African Americans and to set in stone the practice that "all men are created equal". DiLorenzo uses the increasing of income tax and centralized banking during Lincoln's term as examples of Lincoln's original purpose for the Civil War. The purposes, as interpreted by DiLorenzo, were to make the U.S. Government so large that no state would be able to secede. The book tells that economic purposes were the main root of the Civil War. President Lincoln was needed to gain more control over the south for the betterment of the United States as a whole.
Thomas Dilorenzo's key point in this piece is that Lincoln's title of the "great emancipator" was merely stumbled upon through a quest to install his ideas into the American Government. Although personally I am a great "fan" of Lincoln's for what he did for America, this book gives me a new perspective on Lincoln. But many of DiLorenzo's reasons seem to be using Lincoln's own words and actions and taking them out of context. He is still the greatest president the United States has ever had to me, yet I now have as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story".
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Summary: Wow! Dilorenzo has done it!
Review: Like most Americans, I was taught and believed that Abraham Lincoln was one of our greatest, if not our greatest president. It was only a few years ago, after years of research, that I inadvertently discovered the truth - chiefly that the South had the Constitutional right to secede, and that the war promulgated by Lincoln was therefore wrong and an unjust war - and that Lincoln was far from a hero or a great man. But I was not clear on Lincoln's motivations.
"The Real Lincoln" brought it all together - explained why he did what he did, and the disastrous repercussions to our country and our liberties. Enough said. Buy it and read it. It's an eye-opener. Dilorenzo speaks the truth - his critics just don't want to hear it.
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Summary: Its commentary, not history.
Review: This book reads like its falls somewhere between the Dixiecrat pages of "Southern Partisan" magazine and the leftist historic revisionism of Pravda. Far from being an objective historian, Dilorenzo writes with a huge chip on his shoulder. Slogging through this nausiating diatribe, the reader begins to wonder just what personal slight a man who's been dead for over 130 years could have done to fill the author with such anger. DiLorenzo just can't seem to find anything good to say about Lincoln, or America for that matter. (He and Sean Penn should get together.) The book reads like another one of those consipracy theories. Every little problem we have today is all Lincoln's fault, or so DiLorenzo says, and according to the author, there is plenty of material to back this harebrained claim up. Unfortunatly most of the works he cites are from both far left and far right fringe writers, commentators, and revistionist historians. As the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out.
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Summary: The Truth Shall Set You Free
Review: This is no doubt one of the best books that I've ever read on the subject of Abraham Lincoln.
As Sgt. Friday would say " just the facts mam ". And , DiLorenzo did just that, staying to the facts.
The books that I've read mostly paint a picture of Lincoln as some kind of a god.
DiLorenzo cuts throug the myths to the truth.
Well documented.
Would there have ever been a Hitler or Lennon if not first a Lincoln? Read to find out.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, But Wildly Innaccurate
Review: This book does not do justice to the rise of the republican party in the days leading to the Civil War. To suggest the Civil War was solely about states' rights or taxation and not about slavery clearly demonstrates that the author never read the Lincoln Douglas debates in their entirety. It is understandably difficult for "economic" historians to accept the notion that the Civil War began because of slavery, and this book's premise is merely a replay of the histories that came out of the '30's and 40's. The fact is that slavery was the precipitating issue underlying all the factors usually attributed to the cause of the Civil War. To suggest that Lincoln needlessly caused the Civil War or coerced the South is to ignore: that the majority of the southern states had initiated seccessionist conventions even before Lincoln took office; that Lincoln's overtures to the South before the War were roundly rejected by the South; that the violence that marred Kansas had everything to do with slavery; that the horrible Dred Scott decision underlined the weakness of the then developing Supreme Court; the very real power that the abolitionists wielded in the republican party; all the failed compromises that delayed the Civil War for over forty years; and that our esteemed founding fathers had gotten the principles right, but had failed to put those principles into practice (See-Articles of Federation). Ultimately the Civil War became a war to free slaves. It started because of slavery. Any other interpretation belies an honest view of history
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Summary: The War about Slavery
Review: The first shots were fired by the South out of fear of losing their free labor. The Civil War was about the South's inability to let go of a dying institution and Lincoln's determination to save the Union. In this day and age, it's a tragedy that some 'scholars' are still clinging to the states rights argument as a justification for secession. The Civil War is over, and thankfully Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun were proven wrong by history. 0 stars. What a load, Dilorenzo.
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