Rating: 
Summary: Reconstruction or Brainwashed
Review: Amazing facts that straightend out my mind on this man and the cause of a war that changed America for ever. Reconstruction brainwashed me to praise a president that hated the South! Today we dont't even consider the facts of history. After reading "The real Lincoln"
my eyes were opened, I'm not even ashamed to be called a Southerner anymore! I have a great heritage, now I search for the truth and continue to find amazing history that was hidden from me! Thank you Mr. Dilorenzo.
Rating:
Summary: Don't infer what you don't know
Review: The one-star reviewers here of course attack Dilorenzo's motives in writing this book. Glaringly absent is any discussion of its content. The 'reader' from Houston (probably Molly Ivins) sets up a few straw men to knock down, ostensibly to wow the reader with his or her knowledge and thereby lend credence to his or her criticism. I'm not fooled. Who cares what Stephens thought of Jefferson Davis? Is this relevant? Judge the book on its philosophical merits instead of personally attacking the author and his motives for writing it. Oh, I forgot. That's what American collectivists do when they're losing the argument.
Rating:
Summary: Steely Eyed Observer
Review: Thomas DiLorenzo is a brilliant analyst of history. It is so rare to find an historian who has the ability to see clearly passed the fog of culture and mythology in popular-history. This book is one of the most honest evaluations of the facts surrounding Lincoln and the Civil War that I've ever read, and it's written with clarity and courage. Maybe, in another 100 years, Americans, as a whole, might know more of what's in this book, if they're lucky, and see the history of this nation through truth, instead of indoctrination.
Rating:
Summary: A different look at our 'greatest' president
Review: The latest polls place Abe Lincoln at the top of the list of "Greatest Presidents". Indeed, few of our nation's past leaders are as reveared (and practically worshipped) as much as Honest Abe is today.This book takes a different look at his presidency and offers some challenging new ideas for "Lincoln Lovers". Indeed, anyone who has read some decent civil war history outside of a high school or college textbooks will know that the civil war was about much more than the just the one issue of slavery and abolition. Like many wars throughout history, they are usually about money and power. You will find within its pages a clear and concise arguement against the more popular view of Abe Lincoln. Thomas J. Dilorenzo describes a very clear picture of what the Lincoln presidency was REALLY about... raising import tariffs in the south to get more money... ignoring the constitution whenever it didn't suit his agenda... using "dictator-like" tactics to increase his power... and ultimately increasing the power of the federal gvt. itself.
I always enjoy a book that has the guts to argue against the popular myths that we are usually taught in school in place of any real history. Get this book and see Honest Abe from a different point of view.
Rating: 
Summary: Ahhh revisionist history at its best.
Review: What I can't stomach is Historical books written with an agenda in mind as opposed to factual history. This book is an attempt at tearing down a great president. Why? Who knows, but it is clear the author obviously has a contempt for Lincoln. While the book reads well it is frought with speculation and lacks sufficient documentation in many arguments. Maybe this book is OK for reading as fiction from the library, but don't spend your hard earned money on it.
Rating:
Summary: The real Lincoln
Review: Dismissing Lincoln's concern for the inequities of institution of slavery as a political chimera, DiLorenzo (economics, Loyola College in Maryland) argues that Lincoln's real agenda in prosecuting the Civil War was to further the Hamiltonian project of centralizing government function in an economically interventionist state. The idea that slavery was central to the Civil War is discounted by reference to the possibilities of compensated emancipation, glossing over the fact that the Southern states seceded over the issue of the expansion of slavery to the territories. Lincoln's real motivation was an adherence to Henry Clay's economic agenda, which pitted the Republicans against the "states' rights Jeffersonians." Other chapters look at the theoretical basis of the right to secede and criticize (from a libertarian viewpoint) the economic legacy left by Lincoln.
Rating:
Summary: Rewriting history in personal bile
Review: Professional political gadfly Thomas DiLorenzo trots out all of the old complaints and defamations that critics have flung at Lincoln since Old Abe first ran for public office and tries vainly to breathe new life into them.
Scared of the organized Black Movement? Blame Abe - he freed them! Tired of political hypocrisy? Abe started it - he really didn't like black people at all! Overpowered by Big Government? It's all Abe's fault - look at how government grew during the Civil War!
This may sound like meaningful revelations to those Yahoos who slept through American history and civics classes in high school. But anyone who ever read an American history book will recognize it for the bunk it is.
The truth is, no one even expected Lincoln to be elected as president in 1860. It was generally agreed that Stephen Douglas was a shoo-in, IF he could get the Democratic Party to solidify behind him, especially since the Democrats were picking up new members in the South from the old Whig party that the new Republican entity had just replaced. If you must have a conspiracy to blame for the Civil War, look no further than the southern secessionist fire-eaters who split the Democrats at the party's 1860s convention in hopes that Lincoln would be elected. Even after he became president, Lincoln still was limited by a Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate at a time when Congress held much more power and public support than the President. Alexander H. Stephens, future vice president of the Confederacy and a friend of Lincoln, pointed that out in a speech to the Georgia legislature when arguing against secession. Yet Lincoln was more popular among US soldiers -- the very people that DiLorenzo claims he most victimized -- than even Gen. George McClellan who unsuccessfully opposed Lincoln's bid for re-election. On the other hand, Stephens and Jeff Davis were first appointed by the ruling elite of the provisional Confederate Congress as, respectively, vice president and president of the Confederacy and were unopposed in the one subsequent general election. And Stephens, acknowledged as the greatest authority of his day on the US Constitution, soon denounced Davis as a despot for his autocratic ways in office. After all, the Confederacy was the first government ever to authorize a national program to impress its citizens involuntarily into its armed forces - a move that many southern judges declared at the time to be a clear violation of states' rights.
Rating:
Summary: The truth shall set you free
Review: This book has helped to break the chains of the modern federal governments propaganda and twisting of history to keep the heat off themselves for their sins in history . A must read for anyone willing to look at the other side of the coin .
Rating: 
Summary: Things You Never Learned in Public School
Review: Unlike J. B. Case, I have actually taken the time to read the book. If digested with an open mind, the reader will find a book full if insight and often overlooked historical data. Remember, those who win the war, write the history books. It has taken many years and thousands of hours of research to get back to the real history. "THe Real Lincoln" helps with this process.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Hypothesis: Long on Ideology, Short on Evidence
Review: DiLorenzo presents an interesting hypothesis: that the corporate power elite dominating this country emerged during Lincoln's presidency, the War Between the States, and the Republican-dominated congresses and administrations following his death. In the author's view, the United States as the empire dominating the globe got its start during the civil war, when the free trade agenda was wiped out along with the Confederacy. Unfortunately, the author operates from a conservative Liberatarian agenda, and like his compatriots, he seems to tailor the facts to fit this model. In his view, all "internal improvements" from state-sponsored canals and railways in Illinois during the 1830s to the Transcontinental Railroad constructed during the 1860s were attended by corruption, special interest influence, and all the trappings of rent-seeking behavior, and the companies went bankrupt in the end. DiLorenzo contrasts the Transcontinental Railroad with James Hill's Great Northern Railroad, which he claims succeeded without governmental subsidy and governmental takings. Perhaps so, but one has the feeling DiLorenzo is omitting facts that might contradict his model. It is perhaps true that the Civil War was more a struggle of Northern corporate interests against a developing South than one of slavery versus abolition, and it is a matter of record that Union troops devastated southern property and economy thanks to Sherman, Sheridan, and others. Whether Lincoln established a virtual dictatorship in this country is an issue worthy of research. It is a scientific maxim, however, that extradordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. DiLorenzo presents some suggestive evidence, but it is neither exhaustive nor comprehensive. Libertarian tirades, which appear often in this book, do not constitute empirical support.
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