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Unhistorical trash - worth 0 stars
I read The Real Lincoln once and was, in some regards, impressed with the number of sources and the style of writing. Still, it bugged me because so much that I have read did not allow his pejoratives to ring true. Therefore, I began investigating its sources in detail, one by one, before coming to a conclusion. I have found that The Real Lincoln is one the slickest example of half truths, anachronisms, and unfair assaults I have ever read. So incensed am I that I am preparing a book to counter Mr. DiLorenzo's disgraceful rewrite of history.
Obviously, I can't go into great length here, but let's look at two examples.
1) Several times DiLorenzo scathes Lincoln for ordering the arrest of Clement L. Vallandigham for making an anti-administration speech before Congress in August 1861. That is false on two counts. First, Ambrose Burnside alone was responsible for ordering Vallandigham's arrest, a fact well documented but not appearing in Mr. DiLorenzo's bibliography. Lincoln knew nothing about the arrest order until it had been consummated. Second, the event that led to the arrest was not Vallandigham's August 1861 speech to Congress but a May 1863 speech that he gave in Ohio. All this appears several times in the Official Records and contemporaneous newspapers.
2) DiLorenzo cites a number of Republican newspapers that ostensibly criticized Lincoln's policies. Except when you read the entire article (one from the New York Times, for example) you find exactly the OPPOSITE is true, that DiLorenzo only cited that portion of the article that paraphrased the opposition's thoughts, not subsequent paragraphs where they savaged Lincoln's opponents. This happens in many other cases such as making historian David Herbert Donald appear to be on the DiLorenzo ticket of Lincolnism when full cites would have revealed something totally different.
Either Mr. DiLorenzo did not do his homework, or he is outright lying. His obvious purpose is not providing a cogent look at Abraham Lincoln but beating the drum for his modern-day libertarian economic viewpoints. Only the purest form of the Jeffersonian economic and political model matters to him, and any deviation from it is tantamount to tyranny. While one may argue the point of minimal government interference, DiLorenzo blasts Lincoln with one pejorative after another and gives but lip service to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. DiLorenzo even goes so far as to blame Lincoln for Reconstruction, as if the dead president were somehow able to lead events from the grave. Radical Republicans are responsible for Reconstruction, and Lincoln was never a Radical Republican, much less a live one.
I could say much more, but it will have to wait for publication where I can expound at length. The saddest part of this book is that too many believe this drivel.
September 2006 · Books · verified purchase