From Publishers Weekly
The question that animates this original, insightful, disarmingly funny book is: how do Americans commemorate Lincoln, and what do our memories of him reveal about our visions of the good life? To discover the answer, Ferguson, an editor at the
Weekly Standard and a Lincoln buff, made a long field trip, poking into many of the places where Americans have chosen to remember—or to forget—Honest Abe. He eavesdrops on the Lincoln Reconsidered conference, where a group of "Abephobes" aim to retrieve Lincoln's memory from the distortions of "liberal historians." He considers the "Disney aesthetic" of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., and attends a convention of Lincoln "presenters" (otherwise known as impersonators). Ferguson is occasionally and unnecessarily snide, and a deeper examination of the changing place of Lincoln in mainstream historical scholarship would have added a great deal to the book. Still, Ferguson's conclusions are stirring. He finds Lincoln's meaning best articulated by Robert Moton, an educator whose parents were slaves. With great simplicity, Moton explained Lincoln's greatness: "...in a time of doubt and distrust... he spoke the word that gave freedom to a race and vindicated the honor of a Nation conceived in liberty...."
(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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With his curiosity piqued by a 2003 protest against the installation of an Abraham Lincoln statue in Richmond, Virginia, journalist Ferguson decided to undertake a tour of vernacular attitudes toward the historical Lincoln. His travels and interviews with Lincoln buffs and Lincoln haters tend toward the insouciant but are grounded by sharp insights into how Lincoln is regarded by the populace rather than by scholars. Starting from his childhood career as a buff in the early 1960s, nurtured by his visits to Illinois' Lincoln sites, Ferguson revisits them to see what has changed from his heroic Lincoln of memory. A lot, the museum curators tell Ferguson, since the public needs to know about Lincoln's imperfections. Apparently much of the public hasn't gotten the deconstructionist message, as Ferguson merrily visits buffs, such as obsessive collectors of Lincolnalia and a convention of Abe and Mary Lincoln impersonators. Ultimately dragooning his protesting kids into a road trip to Lincoln's boyhood haunts, Ferguson and his discovery of the infinitely malleable Abe--yesterday's Emancipator, today's business consultant--deliver wry, ever-humorous perspectives.
Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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