About this title: In Gore Vidal's 1988 LINCOLN, the story of the Civil War president is told mostly from John Hay's point of view. The last in Vidal's tetralogy of US political novels (WASHINGTON DC, BURR, and 1876 are the others), LINCOLN provides a nuanced picture of the president universally considered great. Here, Lincoln is very much a calculating politician, and his greatness comes with difficulty: he agonizes over every decision, and is deeply ambivalent about the issue of slavery that divided the country during his administration. At the same time, Lincoln's personal life is tumultuous: his young son ...
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Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780345312211ISBN:034531221X
Description: No dust jacket as issued. Light edge and corner wear. No marks. Tight, square book. Tanning pages. Stain on bottom side of book next to spine. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Spine is well creased. Covers show wear at the edges and corners. Good Grade C average reading copy. Binding is Mass Market Paperback. Pages tanning. Used books may have price stickers. Most orders ship on the next business day. read more
Description: Fair. 0394528956 Good condition hard cover book with acceptable paper dust jacket cover. Tanning and signs of wear, good text for reading, may be book club or have inscriptions/names inside cover or first page. Shop & Save With US. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780345312211ISBN:034531221X
Description: Poor. No Jacket. One Corner Chewed, Corners/Edges Worn, Some Tears On Spine, Spine Creased, Page Corners Creased, Interior Unmarked, Reading Copy ONLY. read more
"This is not the easiest book to read. It is dense, large, and dense. But very much worth the read if you have any interest in the American Civil War or President Lincoln.
Like any good Historical novel worth it's salt, it's brilliantly researched. A lot of the things said by Lincoln in the novel were in fact recorded speech from the great President. What I love about this novel though is that you never quite know what is going through Lincoln's head. All the point of views are from his wife, his secretary, his minister of treasury and his minister of war.
"Took me long enough to get through it, but truly worth the time...who knew a late 1800s indoor political story could be so wildly entertaining? The amusing dialogue alone is worth the read and the research was mind-boggling. What struck me the most was how relevant so much of the history is to the 2008 political landscape. Shout out to Matt Boyer for making me read this instead of Team of Rivals."
"This is a fabulous novel that overcomes the weak (and most fictionalized) sections dealing with David Herold (co-conspirator in the Lincoln assassination) and delivers a wonderful portrait of America's greatest President. Whether one agrees with Vidal's politics or not, one cannot deny his gifts as a writer.
In bit of authorial ventriloquism, in the epilogue, John Hay (Lincoln's former secretary) provides a voice to Vidal's own summing up of of "Honesy Abe". Attending a diplomatic reception in Paris some 2 years after Lincoln's death, Hay is asked, "Where...would you place Mr. Lincoln amongst the presidents of our country?" His response glows with the power of truth: "Oh, I would place him first... Mr. Lincoln had a far greater and more difficult task than Washington's. You see, the Southern states had every constitutional right to go out of the Union. But Lincoln said, no. Lincoln said, this Union can never be broken. Now that was a terrible responsibility for one man to take. but he took it, knowing he would be obliged to fight the greatest war in human history, which he did, and which he won. So he not only put the Union back together again, but he made an entirely new country, and all of it in his own image."
"I read this for book club. It's kind of long, and it's not the easiest read, but it was still interesting. The author took great care to make it authentic and true. Vidal really did his homework! There are only a couple of fictional characters in the novel, and they play a very minor role in the epilogue only. If you are into Civil War era history or historical fiction, I'm sure you'd like this book a lot. What I didn't like about the book was that there was SO MUCH war talk, political talk, and just scheming scheming scheming. I wanted more of a personal story (although I realize that would be a lot harder to find fact and would require much more fiction). I still recommend it and can't wait for the book club discussion!"
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