November 4, 1996
Pulitzer prize winner Donald's biography was a PW bestseller for 11 weeks.
September 1, 1995
Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, most recently for Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (LJ 12/86), Donald proves himself the superb biographer of Lincoln, though two recent biographies, Michael Burlingame's The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln (LJ 4/1/94) and Merrill Peterson's Lincoln in American Memory (LJ 10/1/94), are both important studies. Donald's profile of the 16th president focuses entirely on Lincoln, seldom straying from the subject. It looks primarily at what Lincoln "knew, when he knew it, and why he made his decisions." Donald's Lincoln emerges as ambitious, often defeated, tormented by his married life, but with a remarkable capacity for growth--and the nation's greatest president. What really stands out in a lively narrative are Lincoln's abilities to hold together a nation of vastly diverse regional interests during the turmoil and tragedy of the Civil War. Donald's biography will appeal to all readers and will undoubtedly corral its share of book awards. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., Ala.
Starred review from August 1, 1995
The man who became our greatest president seems, from our vantage point, to have been an obvious choice for the job. But as esteemed Lincoln scholar Donald indicates in this magisterial yet intimate new biography, when people first began discussing the idea of Lincoln for president in 1860, the prairie lawyer had few of the usual qualifications for the office. There was no inevitability about his progress from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., a path Donald nonetheless follows in luxuriant detail. Writing as complete and as believable a psychological portrait as possible from this distance, the author tells of a man who started with few advantages but spent his whole life learning and growing. Ironically, Lincoln was by nature a reactor, not an instigator; he believed his existence was controlled by a higher authority. From the deprivations of his frontier childhood, Lincoln "carried away from his brief schooling the self-confidence of a man who has never met his intellectual equal." Lincoln took considerable time, though, finding the niche whereby he could support himself; the legal field eventually drew him, and drew out his talents, as did his interest in politics. How he eventually became the leading Republican in Illinois, then president, and then successful commander-in-chief is a wondrous story, and it is brilliantly interpreted here. ((Reviewed August 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)
October 2, 1995
Donald, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished scholar of the Civil War era (Charles Sumner), offers here a provocative reinterpretation of Abraham Lincoln's career and character. Donald presents Lincoln's nature as essentially passive. Throughout his life, according to Donald, Lincoln believed his destiny was controlled by some larger force or ``higher power.'' This conviction generated both an underlying fatalism and a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. If one approach--or one general--failed, another could be tried. Although the information available to Lincoln was often significantly limited by modern standards, bold plans based on a priori reasoning were foreign to his thought process. Instead, it was Lincoln's ability to respond to events and actions that brought the U.S. through its greatest crisis and established the matrix for successful, if imperfect, reunification. BOMC split main selection; History Book Club main selection.