Overview

In 1890 Abraham Lincoln’s two main White House secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, published the ten-volume biography Abraham Lincoln: A History. Although the authors witnessed the daily events occurring within the executive mansion and the national Capitol, their lengthy biography is more a recounting of the Civil War era than a study of Lincoln’s life. Editor Michael Burlingame sifted through the original forty-seven-hundred-page work and selected only the personal observations of the secretaries during the Lincoln presidency, placing ten excerpts in chronological order in Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay. The result is an important collection of Nicolay and Hay’s interpretations of Lincoln’s character, actions, and reputation, framed by Burlingame’s compelling preface, introduction, chapter introductions, and notes. The volume provides vivid descriptions of such events as Election Day in 1860, the crisis at Fort Sumter, the first major battle of the war at Bull Run, and Lincoln’s relationship with Edwin Stanton and George McClellan. In this clear and captivating new work, Burlingame has made key portions of Nicolay and Hay’s immense biography available to a wide audience of today’s readers.

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9780809338634

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Reviews

The introduction is excellent, the annotations enlightening, and the text selections judicious and valuable. - Allen C. Guelzo, author of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America and Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President

A complete view of Lincoln's life... thorough. --Diane Cole U.S. News & World Report A magisterial enterprise. --William Safire New York Times A monumental and meticulous two-volume study of the 16th president... should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in Lincoln. --Mark Bowden Atlantic A monumental boxed effort that weighs in at 10 pounds... The result is a picture of Lincoln from all sides, in a style that is relentless but not daunting. --Bloomberg News A stunning feat of research. --Michael F. Bishop Publishers Weekly An exhaustive and stylishly written biography. --Greg Rienzi Gazette Burlingame is a towering figure in Lincoln scholarship, and students of the 16th president have been waiting for this book for years. For all his learning--Burlingame may know more about Lincoln and his era than anyone in the world--his take on his subject is fresh, and he doesn't gloss over Lincoln's less appealing attributes. Abraham Lincoln comes as close to being the definitive biography as anything the world has seen in decades. --Time.com Burlingame very likely knows more about Lincoln than anyone who's ever lived, including Mary Todd, and his biography, 20 years in the writing, has a revelation on every page, dug out during the biographer's tireless research into musty libraries and forgotten attics that no one has ever thought to look in before. If there is anything knowable that you want to know about Lincoln, this is the place to find it. --Andrew Ferguson American Spectator If you aspire to Ultimate Lincoln Knowledge this is a must-read. --Chicago Tribune Most thorough account of the development of Lincoln as a man and politician against the backdrop of America's struggle to mature as an idea and a nation... Not a Lincoln for our times, but the Lincoln of his times, and future biographers would do well to take note(s). --Books and Culture: A Christian Review No review could do complete justice to the magnificent two-volume biography that has been so well-wrought by Michael Burlingame. --Christopher Hitchens Atlantic Monthly The author knows more about Lincoln than any other living person. --James McPherson New York Review of Books The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth has generated a plethora of Lincoln-related items, but none impresses more than this two-volume biography... Essential. --Choice The granddaddy of all the recent books [on Lincoln] is Michael Burlingame's Abraham Lincoln: A Life... monumental in size, depth and scholarship, this is the new standard biography of our time and surpasses all other life portraits of our 16th president, and is the most important book of the bicentennial. --James L. Swanson Washington Times The two-volume set is being heralded as the ultimate new biography of Lincoln, an essential work to be used by all future biographers of the 16th president. --Anne Byle Grand Rapids Press These monumental volumes deserve a wide readership. --St. Louis Post-Dispatch This book supplants [Carl] Sandburg and supersedes all other biographies. Future Lincoln books cannot be written without it, and from no other book can a general reader learn so much about Abraham Lincoln. It is the essential title for the bicentennial. --James L. Swanson Publishers Weekly This magisterial work tells a rich, thoroughly documented, birth-to-death story of America's greatest president. Its bulk is formidable, but it holds countless rewards for undaunted readers. --Jane Henderson St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Author Information

Michael Burlingame, Sadowski Professor of History Emeritus at Connecticut College, is the author of The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln and the editor of eleven books about Lincoln, including An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays, winner of the Abraham Lincoln Association Prize. He won the prestigious Lincoln Prize, honorable mention, for his five edited collections of letters, memoranda, editorial essays, lectures, and interviews by Lincoln’s White House private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, all published by Southern Illinois University Press.

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