Rating: 
Summary: Better Lucky than Smart
Review: Both "John Adams" and "The Real Lincoln" are RECOMMENDED reading for the history nut (and in that chronological reading order).A rainy weekend in Louisiana & I finished all the books that I really wanted to read. "John Adams" was on my shelf. I got it as a gift but I was desperate. I read it. Super history of the Revolution & a great love story (& I don't like love stories). Just as I finished "John Adams", "The Real Lincoln" showed up. What LUCK, the "rest of the story" with the 1st half FRESH in my mind. Regards, Jim PS- Oh yah, cruel stepmother - thanx for the gift of "John Adams" :-)
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Summary: Revisionist history finally challenged!
Review: The tripe we're fed in schools regarding the civil war is openly challenged in this thoughtful work. There are many popular misconceptions about the civil war, the south, and Lincoln which are put to rest in this book.
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Summary: Don't Confuse Me With Facts
Review: ... I, frankly, never liked being lied to or given my thinking for the day by some slick snake oil salesman. I don't like being duped or made the chump, even by my own government. Don't read this book if your beliefs are set in stone, and your mind had been permanently made up. Do read this book if you are a free thinker, willing to embrace the truth that one of the folks you have always been told is a hero might just have been nothing more than a lawyer and politician. We've been fed some great lies in our lifetimes, and always for the profit of the liar. And historically the easiest person to lie to is usually oneself. If we begin to tell what Mark Twain called "the unvarnished truth", maybe we could circumvent some future wars. This book is a courageous, analytical look at the dark side of Lincoln. Worth the read. But some of us don't won't to admit that there might be tarnish on our long fixed monuments. And we're willing to fight over it.
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Summary: An accurate portrayal of the Lincoln Administration, but....
Review: rather wordy. In fact I have never seen the word "myriad" used so much, but I digress. He clearly could have made his point in half the time, but many who write scholarly works believe that the longer the piece the better. The information contained within is common knowledge for those who have studied the time period. Lincoln did nothing, for example, to stop Sherman's "March to the Sea," and all of the horrible crimes which were committed. The book, I think, would be an eye-opener for those who believe that Lincoln was some kind of great savior as my public school teachers would have had me believe. He was, no doubt, a tyrant who gave the military the green light to do whatever it wanted and who would not allow anyone to stand in his way.
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Summary: Not a Real Biography
Review: I agree with the last two reviewers. The "facts" can be molded or shaped to fit any agenda. This is clearly what has happened here. Revisionist history at its worst. Avoid at all costs.
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Summary: Old politics masquerading as new history
Review: There seems to be a new trend in popular Civil War history for Libertarian economists who happen to be Civil War buffs to write "new" historical interpretations of the war. Apparently fueled by outrage that they weren't told that Lincoln was a Whig when they were in grade school, they launch a political diatribe claiming he is single-handedly responsible for everything wrong with our modern government. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with Lincoln's positions on tariffs, internal improvements, or central banks as long as you admit that these are political issues not historical ones. You have to look no farther than the title of the book to realize it isn't about history. The question of whether the Civil War was or wasn't inevitable has been debated in the literature for almost 80 years. The problem is that it is a metaphysical question, not an historical one. It is not possible to prove necessity in a causal relationship, only sufficiency. In other words, it is possible to prove empirically that A caused B, but it is impossible to prove that without A B could not have happened. Therefore, it is impossible to prove that the Civil War wouldn't have happened even is Lincoln had never been born. Mr. DiLorenzo stated on CSPAN that he would have voted for Senator Douglas had he been alive in 1860, but it doesn't matter how much empirical evidence you try to marshal to support your thesis, it is logically impossible to say one way or the other whether there would have been a war with Steven Douglas as president. It is regrettable that even some of the best historians allow themselves to be drawn into these kinds of arguments, but that doesn't make them any less meaningless. If you want to understand the constitutional issues of the Civil War, get Herman Belz's "Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights." If you want to understand the origins of Lincoln's political thought, get Alan Guelzo's "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President." If you want to read a good critique of another book in this genre from a Libertarian viewpoint, see the review of Jeffrey Hummel's "Freeing Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" ...If you want to know everything that's wrong with DiLorenzo's book, read David Fischer's "Historian's Fallacies: Towards a Logic of Historical Thought." But if you just want to hear the same old Lost Cause arguments all over again flavored with some modern Libertarian anti-Federalism, get "The Real Lincoln."
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Summary: Revisionist Truculence...
Review: Has it occurred to approving reviewers what the State of the Union might be if our greatest President--after 60 years "roiling issues of slavery in territories and New states"--had not engaged us in the Great Civil War? Where,in this tumultous century, would the Arsenal of Democracy have been?The Berlin Wall? The voracious Soviet Empire? Has it occurred to DECONSTRUCTIONISTs--and radical, so-called Libertarians--that without The UNITED States of America, totalitarian Communism and/or Fascism certainly would have triumphed (as ruthless forms of Islamic despotism now essay)? A HOUSE DIVIDED CANNOT STAND: This was as true when Lincoln reminded, as when Christ so counseled .This United States...contra THESE United States;Confederate States of America; Pacific States of America or whatever grab-bag PC construct Political New Agers concoct... is unique physical-metaphysical polity.Its world astounding accomplishments would have been impossible--even to imagine--if ONE NATION INDIVISIBLE had devolved into opposing satrapies forever in opposition. (Napoleonic Wars; WWI; and WW II were civil wars that enervated the polities which fomented them.) Dilorenzo's essay is a truculent exercise in revisionism. The book--while entertaining--is historical dreck. Forget this desk-top DARKNESS at NOON author. Read about Lincon: Benjamin Thomas'classic biography is excellent. Look at Carl Sandburg's magnum opus; or THE LIFE and WRITINGS of ABRAHAM LINCOLN edited by Philip Van Doren Stern (in an outstanding 1999 Modern Library compilation). Regard particularly The GETTSYBURG ADDRESS and SECOND INAUGURAL: "With malice toward none, and charity for all...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." This is Lincoln. If these works will not sway you, study FOR CAUSE and COMRADES: Why Men Fought in the Civil War by the nation's currently preeminent Civil War historian,James M. McPherson.In this work (which may eventually surpass in renown his BATTLE CRY of FREEDOM)the Pulitzer Prize winning professor presents excerpts from over a thousand letters written by Federal and Confederate combatants expressing HISTORICAL NECESSITY of the Civil War and their own sense of duty, honor and personal obligation to God and country in fighting it.THROUGH BLOOD& FIRE at GETTSYSBURG by General(at the time of battle, Col.)Joshua Chamberlain's account of the 20th Maine Regiment's vital defense of the Union flank at Little Round Top should convince any but the most heartless or cynical reader that the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR was a conflict that must needs been fought and Pyrrhically won...(1 & 1/2 stars)
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Summary: An axe to grind
Review: This author definately has an axe to grind. Any honest reader would do well to look at the history and leave this book alone.
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Summary: A Prime candidate for pulping
Review: Another nasty little revisionist in the mould of David Irving. The only reason it gets 1 star, is that the combo box doesn't offer negative numbers.
The left may attract the loonies, but the far right seems to have a magnetism for third-rate minds, (consider the rulers of the Third Reich). The states right Dilorenzo is so eager to defend were built round the assumption that it was OK for one human being to own another. Sorry, human rights come before states rights. This book is simply another in the long dreadful line, that says its OK to be horrible to people different from the writer, because, according to the writer, they aren't really people (cause they aren't like them).
Frankly, don't buy this, and I'd rather hope my profile doesn't give me any similar recommendations in the future
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Summary: hindsight advantage
Review: While hindsight is always 20\20, the author had the advantage of being able to look at the history from the standpoint of a distant observor with all the information available to him. This was something that no one in the mid 19th century had at his disposal, not even Lincoln. Information moved slowly, and the idea that he would know what other's reactions would be to his stated policy objectives was, at the time, only his own conjecture. As to his goals as president, as he stated himself, he reacted to events much more than he was able to control them. He was in many ways an accidental president. Given the opportunity, which of us as good Americans would not do what he could to carry out our own vision of what was right for the country? To relate what is best for the country to what is best for the individual gets to the heart of what Lincoln's vision of America was all about. Talk of states rights and sovereignty sickens me. Proponents of states rights and limited government always seem to gloss over the finer points as they refer to the rights of the indidvidual. Those who claim that the war was about states rights and sovereignty never seem to make the jump - states rights to do what? To place the yoke of slavery on another human being, that's what. Why should we care that the south promised to end slavery in 5 years. It should never have been, and anyone who wishes to defend the south and their so-called way of life is someone who wants to hide behind their own conjecture of how this might have been better. The south started the war, based upon what they felt would happen under Lincoln. Lincoln was a minority president, but he got more votes than did Douglas, regardless of the fact that the Electoral college skewed the results. He won the contest the way that the rules were laid out. He lost the 1858 senate race according to the rules as they were laid out at the time, when he should, in all fairness have won that election. That would have put Douglas back into private life, defeated, from whence he would probably not have secured the 1860 nomination. There are lots of theories of what might have been had things been different. As I said, Lincoln reacted to the set of circumstances as they were presented to him at the time. Communications being what they were, it was easy for any politician in control of distribution of his own communications to say one thing in one place, and have someone else believe something else entirely. There was much of that going on in the 1858 debates, and Douglas' contention that he was more consistent in his statements than lincoln is true. But look at those statements. He was arguing for states rights to enslave a people. It was simply wrong. The constitutional convention nearly fell apart over the issue of slavery at the outset. Those who continue to revere a group of men, who did create a good form of government, but failed to address a key point that pertains to human rights are misleaded in THEIR idolatry of those men. To my way of thinking, Lincoln is still the one most deserving of praise. And the modern-day Republican Party is not the legitimate heir of Lincoln. That distinction better describes the Democrats. Alas, even they are not wholly worthy off praise.
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