lincoln on the verge book review

Resources and Downloads

High resolution images.

• Book Cover Image (jpg): Lincoln on the Verge Trade Paperback 9781476739441

Get a FREE ebook by joining our mailing list today!

Plus, receive recommendations and exclusive offers on all of your favorite books and authors from Simon & Schuster.

You may also like: Thriller and Mystery Staff Picks

More to Explore

Limited Time eBook Deals

Check out this month's discounted reads.

Our Summer Reading Recommendations

Red-hot romances, poolside fiction, and blockbuster picks, oh my! Start reading the hottest books of the summer.

This Month's New Releases

From heart-pounding thrillers to poignant memoirs and everything in between, check out what's new this month.

Tell us what you like and we'll recommend books you'll love.

Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington

Ted widmer. simon and schuster, $35 (624p) isbn 978-1-4767-3943-4.

Reviewed on: 01/24/2020

Genre: Nonfiction

Compact Disc - 978-1-7971-0431-7

Downloadable Audio - 978-1-7971-0429-4

Paperback - 624 pages - 978-1-4767-3944-1

• Apple Books
• Barnes & Noble

More By and About this Author chevron_right

Featured Nonfiction Reviews

• Africa & The Middle East Travel
• Asia & Oceania Travel
• Europe Travel
• Food & Drink
• Island Life
• North America Travel
• Reading Wednesday
• South & Central America Travel

Book Review Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer

Dramatic and riveting, I enjoyed this masterful work about Abraham Lincoln and how it almost didn’t happen. Here is my book review Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer.

Thirteen Days

In our fast paced world today it’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact it took President Elect Abraham Lincoln thirteen days to travel from Illinois to Washington DC. Widmer uses extensive research, first hand accounts, letters and telegrams to create this theatrical but factual story.

A Country in Crisis

As Lincoln slowly makes his way to his inauguration, the country is divided and in crisis. Multiple attempts to assassinate Lincoln are in the works. As well as multiple plans to keep Lincoln from ever being inaugurated. Eerily familiar to our recent political chaos, the United States is on the verge of collapse, anarchy and civil war as Southern states have vowed to keep Lincoln from ever taking office.

A Man in the Making

During the 13 day passage, Lincoln’s loyal supporters will create an incredibly well planned journey to protect him at all costs. All while Lincoln himself discovers his own strength through his eloquent voice, as he triumphs in his desire to be the man who is like the people who voted for him.

On the Verge

This journey, perilous and fraught, puts Lincoln on the Verge of greatness. It’s unthinkable what the United States would look like, if Lincoln had not indeed survived and become the greatest of our Presidents in the USA.

I highly recommend this fascinating book. I learned so much about our country, our history, this President and a fascinating collection of characters who we never hear of, but who saved Lincoln on the Verge.

Thanks for reading my Book Review Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer. See last week’s book review The Council of Dolls.

We love it when you pin and share our book reviews. Thank you.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Privacy Overview

writer, photographer, web person from Washington, DC.

Lincoln on the Verge – Book Review

I’m reading the wonderful Lincoln on the Verge , which beautifully captures Old Abe’s rail journey to Washington after his election.

There were two countries in 1860, the year Lincoln was elected. A free and prosperous North and an aristocratic South where wealth was built by slavery.

Despite having a smaller population, the South had elected most of the presidents during the nation’s history. Congress was run for its benefit. The Supreme Court was stacked in favor of slave-masters.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, the long tentacles of Slave Power had spread north as federal marshals hunted escaped slaves in states like Ohio. It was all perfectly legal. And obscene.

Washington was a swamp, literally and figuratively. Filled with half-completed monuments and stinking canals, it was a city controlled by powerful men in the lobby of the Willard Hotel. A new term was developed for them: lobbyists.

The Republican Party was formed in response to this corruption and the endless compromises that kept the slavers in power.

Lincoln was a fresh voice who spoke in simple terms that any person could understand. He said:

A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.

Plots were hatched to prevent his inauguration.

Parliamentary schemes were proposed of the type that would be familiar to Mitch McConnell. There was talk that Congress, still controlled by the South, would refuse to certify the election.

Conspiracies formed in Baltimore to assassinate the President-Elect.

Armed militias drilled in towns like Alexandria to oppose the federal government.

Lincoln on the Verge  depicts how Abraham Lincoln made it to Washington, protected by a nation that wished to reclaim the true American ideals of equality.

More than a century later, the institutions of government are controlled by lobbyists once again. The canals of Washington are long gone but the city is still a swamp. Corporations have been bailed out while ordinary people line up for food banks. The stock market is juiced by a Federal Reserve devoted to printing money, which props up asset-owners while leaving the poor with less.

Once again, as in 1860, we have two nations.

An America of the grift, controlled by the Trump crime family, where favored industries are bailed out and insiders are tipped to dump their stocks before catastrophe.

An America of a precarious working class, one paycheck away from starvation.

Which nation shall prevail? As in 1860, we face a fight.

As told in Lincoln on the Verge , the United States found its champion at exactly the right moment in history. During the long journey to Washington, the people propelled Lincoln forward. They made him as much as he made them.

That is our task now. To fight for our country.

Author: Joe Flood

Joe Flood is a writer, photographer and web person from Washington, DC. The author of several novels, Joe won the City Paper Fiction Competition in 2020. In his free time, he enjoys wandering about the city taking photos. View all posts by Joe Flood

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Apple’s last-gen MacBook Pro 16 is on sale for its best price to date

We also found deals on oled tvs, smart plugs, chargers, and wireless earbuds..

By Sheena Vasani , a writer covering commerce, e-readers, and tech news. She previously wrote about everything from web development to AI at Inside.

Share this story

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

It’s been a good week for Apple fans. Not only did Apple announce its forthcoming “Let Loose” event , but the entire M3-powered  13-inch MacBook Air lineup received a notable discount . And now, the  16-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro chip has plunged to an all-time low. If you require a laptop capable of handling more intense workloads than the Air, authorized Apple retailer Expercom is selling the last-gen MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, a 12‑core CPU, and a 19‑core GPU for $1,998.99 ($500 off) via Amazon .

• What’s the difference between the M2 Pro and the M2 Max?
• Apple will likely ‘Let Loose’ new iPads at its May event
• The best laptops you can get

Like the new M3-powered MacBook Pros , Apple’s last-gen MacBooks can tackle tasks like video editing and photo processing while lasting well over a full workday, which makes them better suited for creative professionals than Apple’s entry-level offerings. They also sport the same gorgeous Mini LED display found on the newer models — which is great for multitasking and streaming — along with a solid port selection that includes three USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI-out, and an SD card slot. Granted, the new M3 MacBook Pros are faster and offer more RAM, but the M2 Pro models are still a great combo of speed and efficiency, especially at this price.

Read our 16-inch MacBook Pro review .

16-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro)

The 16-inch MacBook Pro from early 2023 starts with the M2 Pro 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD storage. It can also be configured with more cores and a higher-end M2 Max processor.

If you’re looking to add voice controls and some basic scheduling to appliances and other traditional gadgets, Eve’s Energy Smart Plug & Power Meter is receiving a rare discount at Amazon . Right now, you can pick up the plug for $34.19 (about $5 off) when you clip the on-page coupon, which is about $5 shy of the all-time low we briefly saw in January.

• Our favorite smart home automations
• What matters about Matter, the new smart home protocol
• The little smart home platform that could

As a Matter-over-Thread device, Eve’s handy smart plug works with a wide range of smart home platforms, including Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and even Apple Home. It offers the most detailed energy monitoring of all the plugs we’ve tested , letting you drill into the estimated cost of using your device by the week, day, and even hour. The Eve companion app also provides an array of more granular logs and charts so you can easily track your total consumption and cost, which can go a long way in helping you save money on your energy bills over time.

Eve Energy Smart Plug & Power Meter

Not only does this smart plug offer the most detailed energy monitoring of any we tested, but it also works with Matter over Thread and is an especially good choice for Apple Home users.

Verge Deals on X /

Join more than 50,000 followers and keep up with the best daily tech deals with @vergedeals

A few more deals and discounts

• LG’s 65-inch C3   OLED  is on sale at Woot for $1,446.99 ($1,053 off) for the next month or so, which is just $9 shy of its all-time low. The last-gen TV doesn’t support variable refresh rates up to 144Hz like the newer C4 model , but it’s still an impressive 4K option that’s great for gaming, thanks to its superb black levels, comprehensive HDMI 2.1a support, and speedy 120Hz refresh rate.
• Anker’s 622 Magnetic Battery  is available from Amazon and Anker for $34.99 (50 percent off), which matches its best price to date. In addition to wirelessly delivering 7.5 watts of power to MagSafe-compatible iPhones, the handy Qi charger serves as a sturdy, StandBy-ready kickstand. Plus, its USB-C port offers passthrough charging, so you can top it off while simultaneously charging your phone. Read our guide to the best magnetic chargers .
• Epomaker’s TH80 Pro is currently down to $76.49 when you clip the on-page coupon at Amazon , which is one of its best prices to date. The 75 percent mechanical keyboard is one of our favorite models , particularly if you’re looking for a budget-friendly wireless alternative to Keychron’s entry-level boards. It supports multiple Bluetooth connections, offers a great typing feel, and comes with your choice of hot-swappable switches (including linear and clicky options). It features per-key RGB lighting, too, but use it sparingly unless you want to drain its battery life quickly.
• Amazon and Best Buy are both selling  Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 for $99.99 ($50 off), which puts them on par pricing-wise with entry-level Galaxy Buds FE . They don’t feature the flat buttons and secure wing tip design found on the latter, but they do offer wireless charging, great sound for the price, and a discrete design that makes them a good default for Android phone owners seeking a cheap set of earbuds. Read our review .

Verge Deals

/ Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox weekly.

The walls of Apple’s garden are tumbling down

The apple vision pro’s ebay prices are making me sad, in the first autonomous racing league race, the struggle was real, they turned cattle ranches into tropical forest — then climate change hit, i traded in my macbook and now i’m a desktop convert.

More from Deals

Sony’s PlayStation Portal handheld is back in stock at multiple retailers

TCL’s entry-level Q6 QLED TV has fallen to a new low price for a limited time

Our pick for the best fitness tracker is down to its best price of the year

Jabra’s noise-canceling Elite 5 are on sale for 40 percent off right now

Advertisement

Supported by

How the Movie ‘Civil War’ Echoes Real Political Anxieties

“Civil War” has tapped into a dark set of national angst. In polls and in interviews, a segment of voters say they fear the country’s divides may lead to actual, not just rhetorical, battles.

• Share full article

By Lisa Lerer

One subject seems to be unifying the right and the left today: Disunion.

From the multiplex to social media, the prospect of America collapsing into armed conflict has moved from being an idea on the tinfoil-hat fringes to an active undercurrent of the country’s political conversation.

Voters at campaign events bring up their worries that political division could lead to large-scale political violence. Pollsters regularly ask about the idea in opinion surveys. A cottage industry has arisen for speculative fiction, serious assessments and forums about whether the country could be on the verge of a modern-day version of the bloodiest war in American history.

And “Civil War,” a dystopian action film about an alternative America plunged into a bloody domestic conflict, has topped box office sales for two consecutive weekends. The movie has outperformed expectations at theaters from Brownsville, Texas, to Boston, tapping into a dark set of national anxieties that took hold after the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol.

Of course, the notion of a future civil war remains a mere notion. But, as another presidential election approaches, it has suddenly become a hotly debated one, reflecting the bipartisan sense of unease that has permeated American politics. In polls and in interviews , a segment of voters have said they fear that the country’s divides have grown so deep that they may lead not just to rhetorical battles but actual ones.

“I personally do not believe we will descend into a formal armed civil war,” said Maya Wiley, who ran for mayor of New York City in 2021 and now serves as the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a civil rights group that has fielded several polls on the topic. “But it’s in the air. It doesn’t surprise me at all that we’re seeing a very explicit fear of where things could go.”

Such fear has been stirred by the violence and chaos that subtly and overtly pervades American politics. Violent threats against members of Congress have reached record levels, as have reports of hate crimes in the country’s largest cities. The husband of Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, was beaten with a hammer in his home. The criminal trial of a former president unfolded in a courthouse while a man nearby doused himself with an accelerant and set his body on fire.

In his first campaign speech of the year, President Biden warned of threats to the country’s democracy and suggested that former President Donald J. Trump could stoke future political violence.

“I make this sacred pledge to you: The defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency,” he said in an address near Valley Forge, Pa., the site of one of the darkest periods of the American Revolution.

Mr. Trump has glorified the Jan. 6 rioters as patriots and maintained his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. When the former president was asked last August by Tucker Carlson whether the country was headed to open conflict, he declined to directly answer.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Trump said. “There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen. There’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen, and that’s probably a bad combination.”

The film has no grounding in such partisan politics. The sides are unclear and the ideology — a “Western Alliance” of secessionists from California and Texas — is impossible to imagine given the stark partisan divides between the states. No details are given about the cause of the conflict or the different visions each side has for the future of the country. There’s no mention of Congress, the courts or other civic institutions other than the presidency and references to the F.B.I.

That political vagueness was an intentional choice by the British writer and director, Alex Garland, who began working on the film in 2020 before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. “I’d say this film is about checks and balances: polarization, division, the way populist politics leads toward extremism, where extremism itself will end up and where the press is in all of that,” Mr. Garland told The New York Times .

His goal was to create a movie that could illustrate the risks of polarization — not just in the United States but globally — and reach the widest audience possible, said Eric Schultz, a Democratic strategist who met with Mr. Garland in the fall of 2021 and worked as a consultant for the film.

The opaque politics have helped the movie attract an audience that bridges political divides. Exit interviews conducted for A24, the studio that produced the movie, found that half of moviegoers identified as “liberal” and half as “conservative,” according to a person with knowledge of the film’s performance in various markets.

The film outperformed expectations in traditionally conservative markets like Oklahoma City and Colorado Springs, as well as more liberal ones like Portland, Ore. In Phoenix and Dallas, a majority of filmgoers identified as moderate or conservative. The top reason viewers cited for seeing the movie was not an interest in independent cinema or action films but the “political dystopian story line.”

The interest in political chaos tracks with a growing body of research showing a dramatic uptick in public fears of violence.

The polling by Ms. Wiley’s organization found that 53 percent of likely voters believed the country was on the path to a second Civil War.

Other surveys show related concerns. Forty-nine percent of adults said they expected violence from the losing side in future elections, in a poll conducted by CBS/YouGov this year. And a survey by The Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that majorities of both Democratic and Republican adults said American democracy could be at risk depending on who won the next election.

Jess Morales Rocketto, a leader of Equis Research, which studies Latino voters , said discussion of a civil war could stem from more of a feeling of insecurity than a reality for voters.

“I think that people believe we are on the brink of civil war,” she said. “When people say stuff like civil war, World War III, what they mean is volatility and instability. They are saying, ‘I feel unsafe.’”

But Barbara F. Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies civil wars, says the prospect of such a conflict isn’t just metaphorical. She believes the country is facing a decade or two of political instability and violence that could include assassinations of politicians or judges and the rise of militia groups.

The movie’s realistic portrayal of such violence taking place in deeply American settings — a golf course, a roadside gas station, the Lincoln Memorial — put the scenes of violence Americans associate more with foreign conflicts into sharper relief, she said.

“This notion that America could never have a civil war; we’ve already had a really, really big one,” said Ms. Walter, the author of “How Civil Wars Start.” “There’s a sense of naiveté, of innocence, that we’re too good for that sort of stuff. We’re not.”

David Mandel, a producer and writer on the television show “Veep,” said the most successful movies and shows about American political life had a “reciprocal relationship” with public opinion about politics. His show, a comedy about a bumbling vice president that began during the Obama administration, was based on the idea that politicians behaved differently in private, and that a miscalculated public remark could lead to their political destruction. As president, Mr. Trump routinely defied that norm, and “Veep” ended before he left the White House.

“By a couple of weeks into the Trump administration, there was no ‘behind closed doors’ and there was no such thing as comeuppance,” Mr. Mandel said. “The show became impossible to do.”

David W. Blight, a historian at Yale University who specializes in the Civil War period, said he did not believe the country stood on the precipice of another one. But if the country were to reach that point, he said, the conflict could share more with the movie version than the historical one.

The Civil War was a regional and ideological crisis that featured some of the largest armies ever formed, he said. A second one would most likely be far more local and vigilante, and stirred by increasing polarization and institutional mistrust.

“For the last couple of years, there’s been all this chatter and a few books out about whether the U.S. is on the brink of a new civil war, and you have to keep telling people, ‘Well no, not in the way you may think about it,’” he said. “Our real Civil War blinds us in that sense.”

Lisa Lerer is a national political reporter for The Times, based in New York. She has covered American politics for nearly two decades. More about Lisa Lerer

Our Coverage of the 2024 Election

Presidential Race

The number of Trump allies facing election interference charges keeps growing, and prosecutors are sending a warning as Donald Trump and his supporters continue  to spread conspiracy theories: that disrupting elections can bear a heavy legal cost.

Trump has vowed to “cancel” President Biden’s policies for cutting pollution from fossil-fuel-burning power plants, “terminate” efforts to encourage electric vehicles , and “develop the liquid gold that is right under our feet” by promoting oil and gas.

A campaign watchdog group filed a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission accusing Trump’s presidential campaign  and related political committees of concealing payments of $7.2 million in legal fees in violation of campaign finance law.

Other Key Races

Scott Perry, the House Freedom Caucus stalwart and 2020 election denier, is confronting a general election challenge in a central Pennsylvania  district that has grown more competitive.

With the 2024 primary season entering the homestretch — and the presidential matchup already set — hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians  cast their ballots  in Senate and House contests  as well as for president and local races. Here are the takeaways .

David McCormick  won an unopposed Republican primary for Senate  in Pennsylvania, securing the party’s nomination two years after former Trump torpedoed his first Senate run by backing his primary rival, the celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes

Steve Carell and William Jackson Harper wallow in misery in Uncle Vanya

Read our review of the latest take on Chekhov's tragicomedy, helmed by award-winning director Lila Neugebauer.

Bridging the gap between absurdity and tragedy is no simple task, but who better to lead the charge than a pair of modern sitcom alums?

Uncle Vanya is once again wallowing in despair on a Broadway stage, this time at Lincoln Center and led by comedy veteran Steve Carell — an actor uniquely suited to the role of a vaguely likable but mostly pathetic man who just barely fits the bill as our story’s hero.

A rumination on mundanity and aimlessness, Uncle Vanya follows a set of characters ailed by a mixture of age, circumstance, and unrequited love. They’re haunted by could-have-beens, to varying degrees of awareness. They’re also miserable and somewhat selfish, scapegoating their unhappiness on those around them with little thought given to the destructive cycles of their own making.... But who are we to judge a plight so distinctly human?

Marc J. Franklin

As expected, there’s a painfully obvious prescience to the Anton Chekhov-penned play, even 125 years after it was first staged. In fact, the tragicomedy grappling with wasted lives and the inevitable decline of the natural world is pushed to further relatability thanks to a lean and contemporary translation from Heidi Schreck — though this reach for accessibility comes at the expense of some of the play’s deeper nuances.

Our story begins after Alexander ( Alfred Molina ), a pompous professor whose stifling presence effortlessly oozes self-pity, retires to his daughter’s country estate — inherited from his first marriage to Vanya’s deceased sister. He arrives with his second wife Elena (Anika Noni Rose), but rather than melting away into countryside peace, their arrival unearths buried resentment, inflames passion, and eventually incites rage. 

Carell is our titular hero, the bitter Vanya who has devoted himself to the family farm along with his niece, Sonia (Alison Pill). In a scene-stealing performance, William Jackson Harper stars as Astrov, an adrift local doctor and environmentalist on the verge of becoming a full-blown alcoholic. Rounding out the stacked cast are Jayne Houdyshell, who makes great use of her limited stage time as Vanya’s mother; Mia Katogbak as a warm nanny named Marina; and Jonathan Hadary as Waffles, the wisdom-dropping, guitar-strumming family friend.

This update on Vanya doesn’t alter the story in any revolutionary terms but noticably streamlines the despair: by some mixture of performance and translation, many of the characters have been flattened into their simplest, most accessible forms. Sonia becomes a lovestruck teenager, and Vanya a bitter jester. Carell’s take on the character lacks Vanya's defining inner turmoil until it explodes out of him. There’s certainly nuance to his malaise — a flippant bitterness buried under humor, occasionally alchemized into frustration — but lacking teeth until the script calls upon him to detonate.

When his pivotal moment comes, Carell rises to the occasion stiffly, but effectively. The play's famous climactic scene sees a gun fired (twice) following a rage-wrought emotional breakdown. Carell is impossible to look away from in that moment — and in many others. He boasts such a distinct charisma that even when we yearn to peel back a layer of the character that appears missing, his presence demands the audience’s attention. 

Balancing the pathos and comedy — something that seems well suited to the entire cast — is ultimately best accomplished by Harper, drowning in torment as Astrov, even when he appears to have discovered relief. His despair is frenetic, ever-palpable thanks to Harper’s naturalistic performance. He crafts an Astrov who actively engages his unhappiness: courting it then batting it away. 

Other performances soar in their subtler moments: Rose’s Elena staring off with glassy eyes as she fails an attempt to take interest in Astrov; or Pill as Sonia, splitting her face with a smile over misunderstood affections. A particular highlight is the Act 1 musical interlude, which sees the entire cast struggling to bury their unhappiness as time passes on and on, to the tune of a nameless neighbor (Spencer Donovan Jones) playing the violin.

The staging by Lila Neugebauer (with scenic design by Mimi Lien and lighting by Lap Chi Chu and Elizabeth Harper) roots us in Alexander’s country estate, nailing notions of mundanity even as the world around the characters remains somewhat ambiguous. A Miles Davis record plays in the background of one scene, a comforting soundtrack countered by the group of deteriorating people occasionally forced to reckon the world around them — far away, but falling apart all the same.

Carell’s presence will no doubt invite fans of The Office and his other works to the theater, and they won’t be disappointed: he certainly earns his laughs as Vanya buries his pain, pokes fun at his companions, chases after a lost love. Though the bitterness boiling beneath the piece may catch them off guard, Neugebauer and Schreck have crafted an especially accessible adaptation, for better or worse. B–

Related content:

• Hell's Kitchen  review: The Alicia Keys musical is a rousing delight
• Stereophonic  review: Drama from the studio enters the stage, and it's a hit
• Lempicka  review: The artist’s life is painted with broad and messy brush strokes in new musical
• Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli do brotherly battle in An Enemy of the People
• The Wiz review: Run, don't ease, on down the road to this spectacular revival of the classic musical

Related Articles

• Biggest New Books
• Non-Fiction
• All Categories
• First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
• How It Works

Get the Book Marks Bulletin

Email address:

• Categories Fiction Fantasy Graphic Novels Historical Horror Literary Literature in Translation Mystery, Crime, & Thriller Poetry Romance Speculative Story Collections Non-Fiction Art Biography Criticism Culture Essays Film & TV Graphic Nonfiction Health History Investigative Journalism Memoir Music Nature Politics Religion Science Social Sciences Sports Technology Travel True Crime

April 22 – April 26, 2024

• Marian Bull recommends eight cookbooks worth reading cover to cover
• Colin Dickey considers Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ legacy
• Kaveh Akbar on his obsessive pursuit of basketball cards

Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln, ed. by Fred Lee Hord and Matthew D. Norman

How to cite.

McKee Barr, J., (2024) “Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln, ed. by Fred Lee Hord and Matthew D. Norman”, The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 43(2): 6, 43–46. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/jala.5207

Download XML Download PDF

Fred Lee Hord and Matthew D. Norman, editors. Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln . Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: The Knox College Lincoln Studies Center and the University of Illinois Press, 2023. Pp. 537.

In her book Achievement the philosopher Gwen Bradford argued that the “essential features” of achievements are, “other things being equal, the more difficult the better, the more competently caused the better, and the more unity in diversity the better… . the value of achievements can also be augmented or diminished by the value of their process or product.” 1 Reflecting upon her concise definition provides a philosophical method for understanding why Abraham Lincoln’s presidency can be considered a success: He was a key reason the Union was preserved and representative democracy vindicated (difficult), slavery was ended (competently caused), with Lincoln using his “will and rationality” 2 (unity in diversity), all in the service of the expansion of human liberty (augmented value). Ever since Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, if not years before that, millions of Americans, especially African Americans, have lauded the 16th president’s successes, although not without significant dissent.

Before now, however, we have never had a single anthology of primary sources detailing how African Americans have viewed Lincoln since the 1850s—the volume under consideration here concludes with a speech by President Barack Obama to the Abraham Lincoln Association in 2009—but due to the achievement of this work (more on that later), this is thankfully no longer true. The book Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln , edited by Fred Hord and Matthew Norman and part of the Knox College Lincoln Studies Center Series, is an outstanding volume that will benefit not only scholars but any American who takes the time to dip into these rich and varied documents. These professors spent more than a decade researching and compiling hundreds of primary sources to include in this splendid volume, and their work is an unqualified success.

Benjamin Quarles suggested that ‘Lincoln became Lincoln because of the Negro,’ and he quoted a revealing statement from Frederick Douglass regarding the primacy of Lincoln’s place in the consciousness of African Americans that serves as a central theme of this anthology: ‘We all know Lincoln by heart.’ The documents in this collection enable readers to … interrogate Quarles’s conclusion, and Douglass’s statement, as these sources provide an opportunity to view the scaffolding of a monument to Lincoln that has been constructed from words rather than marble or bronze. (1–2)

the primary sources excavated and collected in this volume indicate that it would be inaccurate to conclude that African American views on Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation followed a straight-line trajectory that went from uncritical adulation in the 1860s to a bitter, just bitter disillusionment by the 1960s. Rather, the documents support a very different conclusion than has often been assumed and instead offer a much more complicated and nuanced set of African-American views of Lincoln. (9)

Do the authors succeed, and if so, in what sense is their book an achievement? First, Knowing Him by Heart is a beautiful volume, wonderfully edited, with excellent and succinct introductions to each African American source or reading, one that gives you a splendid summary of who the writer was and what they thought about Lincoln. In addition, there is an excellent index that will be of use to readers, where anyone who wants to dip into the sources can do so at their leisure, as this is a book to read slowly, then ponder and reflect, not one necessarily to read straight through cover to cover. Academically, perhaps by way of contrast, it can be used most profitably in an upper-division or graduate course on Lincoln, the Civil War and Reconstruction, African American History, or one on Memory and History. Given the substantial number of documents contained in the book analyzing Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Knowing Him by Heart will serve as a reminder for all historians to ensure that they have their students—certainly at the K-12 and undergraduate levels—closely read and discuss the “central act” of the 16th president’s administration and the varied responses collected in this work.

A second successful aspect of their volume is the inclusion within its covers of a wide variety of sources, both chronologically and geographically. Hence, we read the various thoughts of Frederick Douglass and other African American contemporaries of Lincoln (as well as his successors, obviously), but we also encounter people living as far away from Washington, D.C., in San Francisco, to cite just one example, predicting Lincoln’s future apotheosis. At one Emancipation celebration there, Jeremiah Sanderson, who according to the editors “had known [William Lloyd] Garrison and worked with him,” (84) compared Lincoln to “St. Peter” and claimed that “The event which we celebrate to-day will forever embalm the name of Abraham Lincoln in the hearts of the descendants of Africa on this continent and throughout the world.” (86) Later readings from Malcolm X, Lerone Bennett, Jr., and Barbara Fields, of course, demonstrate the falsification of Sanderson’s expectation, yet fulfill the editors’ hopes of contributing to an informed dialogue about race in the United States.

almost all women’s voices before the modern freedom movement were either ignored or barely accorded recognition. From the inception of this project, the editors have made a concerted effort to include the voices of women by searching lesser-known publications in fairly recent, less sexist sources to ameliorate this problem, but it is a formidable one. (10)

In offering a final assessment, we should remind ourselves of Gwen Bradford’s view that the “essential features” of achievements involve difficulty, competent causation of a valuable product (or process), combined with the unity and diversity of the use of one’s will and rationality. In overcoming the difficulties they must have faced over the years in compiling these varied sources, in competently causing this book to be published, and in the process augmenting its value with their superb editing, the editors made Knowing Him by Heart itself an outstanding and lasting achievement, one that enables Americans, as the economist Thomas Sowell put it, “to understand the momentum of the past and the choices available in the present … constrained by decisions already made and actions already taken—many before we were born.” 3

• Gwen Bradford, Achievement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 170. ⮭ ⮭
• Ibid ., 124. ⮭
• Sowell quoted in Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 48. ⮭

J ohn M c K ee B arr is a Professor of History at Lone Star College – Kingwood and the author of Loathing Lincoln: An American Tradition from the Civil War to the Present (Louisiana State University Press, 2014). He can be reached at [email protected].

• Download XML
• Download PDF
• Volume 43 • Issue 2 • 2023 • Fall 2023

Publication details

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0

Identifiers

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/jala.5207

Peer Review

This article has been peer reviewed.

File Checksums (MD5)

• XML: 9b82cd204fe15526650616eb59e08916
• PDF: 611398eae77c2c50b4a7261c289658b0

Table of Contents

Non specialist summary.

This article has no summary

• Biographies & Memoirs
• Leaders & Notable People

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: $34.67 $34.67 FREE delivery Saturday, May 4 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Buy used: $28.99

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington Audio CD – Unabridged, April 7, 2020

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 1 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing
• Publication date April 7, 2020
• Dimensions 6 x 1.8 x 5.7 inches
• ISBN-10 1797104314
• ISBN-13 978-1797104317
• See all details

Similar items that may ship from close to you

Editorial Reviews

"At a time when we need to restore America's standing in so many places, [Widmer] shows us how we can do it if we remain true to our historic ideals."

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing; Unabridged edition (April 7, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Audio CD ‏ : ‎ 1 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1797104314
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1797104317
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.8 x 5.7 inches
• #2,745 in American Civil War Biographies (Books)
• #3,861 in US Presidents
• #10,817 in Political Leader Biographies

About the author

I grew up in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and have always liked railroads. The chance to combine that with another passion -- Abraham Lincoln -- was too good to pass up. I'm grateful to all the librarians and archivists who made it possible to do all the research that I did for this book. Thanks to them, we can all travel (virtually) with Lincoln on his long train ride, and see a rapidly changing America out the train windows.

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Join our mailing list!

Lincoln on the Verge

Thirteen days to washington.

• Unabridged Audio Download

Table of Contents

• Rave and Reviews

About The Book

About the author.

Ted Widmer is Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College (CUNY). In addition to his teaching, he writes actively about American history in  The   New York Times ,  The New Yorker ,  The Washington Post , and other venues. He has also taught or directed research centers at Harvard University, Brown University, and Washington College. He grew up in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and attended Harvard University.

Product Details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (December 29, 2020)
• Length: 624 pages
• ISBN13: 9781476739441

Browse Related Books

• History > United States > Civil War Period (1850-1877)
• Biography & Autobiography > Political
• Biography & Autobiography > Presidents & Heads of State

Raves and Reviews

“With stunning verve and you-are-there immediacy, Ted Widmer evokes the thirteen day journey of president-elect Abraham Lincoln from Springfield to Washington in which he sealed a fervent bond with his northern followers. Loaded with high drama, danger, and plentiful suspense, the train rides take on an almost mythic dimension, representing the democratic revolution that will soon tip the fractious country into a bloody civil war. A riveting piece of history and a first-rate read." —Ron Chernow, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Grant and Washington: A Life "Ted Widmer's Lincoln On the Verge is an impressively vivid and intimate portrait of Abraham Lincoln on his historic 1861 train journey from Illinois to Washington D.C. (where he was sworn-in as America's 16th president). With a deft blend of textured storytelling and fresh research Widmer recounts the widespread uncertainty and fear that consumed the nation on the eve of the Civil War. Highly recommended!" —Douglas Brinkley, author of Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America “Lincoln's journey by train from Springfield to Washington in February 1861 was full of drama and tension caused by a nation breaking in two as the president-elect's passage through seven of the largest Northern states helped unify them for the impending struggle even a delegates from seven seceded states met a thousand miles to the south to form the Confederacy and conspirators in Baltimore plotted to assassinate Lincoln as he passed through their city, a conspiracy that was foiled by a secret midnight transit. Ted Widmer's narrative captures the drama and tension with sparkling prose that projects the reader back in time to that fateful journey.” —James M. McPherson, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era “A positively elegiac account of the most consequential pre-inauguration journey—and pre-presidential public relations offensive—in American history. Lincoln said at the outset that he had a “task greater than” George Washington faced to preserve the Union the founders had created. Ted Widmer has successfully undertaken a great task of his own in crafting a cohesive, dramatic, and ultimately stirring account of the politically fraught, emotionally draining, and physically dangerous voyage that brought Illinois’ favorite son to the nation’s capital in time, and shape, to meet his destiny.” —Harold Holzer, winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize “A richly detailed and colorful narrative, Ted Widmer's book is wonderfully readable, and surely the fullest account yet of Lincoln's perilous trip to Washington as President-elect.” —Douglas L. Wilson, author of Honor's Voice and Lincoln's Sword “Ted Widmer is one of our best contemporary chroniclers of the American story. He immerses readers in a pivotal moment at the brink of the Civil War, bringing our greatest president to life on the page. And as America now faces another moment of seemingly irreparable disunion, Widmer finds relevance — and even reasons for hope — in the past.” —Adam Goodheart, author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening “In a wholly original, gorgeously crafted reimagining, Mr. Widmer portrays Lincoln’s demanding journey as a Homeric odyssey through perilous terrain toward almost preordained immortality....The story of Lincoln’s inaugural journey has never been told in such rich detail....Mr. Widmer brings off his panoramic, almost mystical interpretation with riveting panache. His book is not only a historical achievement but a literary one." —The Wall Street Journal “A book about a time of national crisis, in a time of national crisis.” — The Guardian “Lincoln buffs will undoubtedly devour the book. A colorful, richly detailed overture to Lincoln’s odyssey.” — Kirkus Reviews “Widmer’s exploration of this historical footnote delivers real depth… History buffs will be entertained and enlightened by this unique view of Lincoln and the country on the cusp of war.” — Publishers Weekly “At last count there were about 15,000 books on Lincoln, not all of them are worth reading. Lincoln on the Verge is.” —CBS This Morning “Widmer’s Lincoln on the Verge is quite simply as good as it gets in the art of writing biography. Besides his thorough research and fast-paced storytelling skills, the author’s deep insights into this tipping-point experience in Lincoln’s life as he traveled to meet his ultimate fate as president charged with the nation-on-his-shoulders responsibility of reuniting the states while acting as commander-in-chief during the most horrific war in American history makes for a saga to be savored.” — Washington Independent Review of Books "One of the most fascinating history books of the year thus far." —The Bowery Boys Podcast "A Lincoln classic...superb....So much has been written about Abraham Lincoln that it’s rare when a historian discovers an episode in his life that, if fully developed and interpreted, yields important new insights. Ted Widmer has done just that..." — The Washington Post "Gripping...evocatively illustrated, and resonant with the kind of leaderly rhetoric and character that sustained the nation—and made it great." — Harvard Magazine "Riveting. Enthralling. Rewarding. Take your pick! Ted Widmer has written a history book that jumps from the page." —Bookreporter.com

Resources and Downloads

High resolution images.

• Book Cover Image (jpg): Lincoln on the Verge Trade Paperback 9781476739441

Get our latest staff recommendations, award news and digital catalog links right to your inbox.

More to Explore

Limited Time eBook Deals

Check out this month's discounted reads.

Our Summer Reading Recommendations

Red-hot romances, poolside fiction, and blockbuster picks, oh my! Start reading the hottest books of the summer.

This Month's New Releases

From heart-pounding thrillers to poignant memoirs and everything in between, check out what's new this month.

Tell us what you’d like to receive below. Or visit our preference center to select the newsletter(s) you prefer.

Academic Newsletter

Please specify your subject area(s):