Reviewer: James A. Percoco
James A. Percoco teaches U.S. and Applied History at West Springfield High School in Springfield, Va. He is author of A Passion for the Past: Creative Teaching of U.S. History and Divided We Stand: Teaching About Conflict in U.S. History. Percoco is a USA TODAY All-USA teacher and is an adjunct professor in the School of Education at American University where he serves as History Educator-in-Residence.
Review:
For the last 10 years many Lincoln aficionados have gathered on the weekend closest to Nov. 19, the date Lincoln uttered the Gettysburg Address, in the small southern Pennsylvania town to reflect, learn and listen to some of the most important Lincoln scholars of this generation discuss the Sixteenth President and his legacy.
Called the Lincoln Forum, their mission is not only to keep alive the memory of America’s martyred president, but to also encourage new scholarship as well as challenge preconceived notions. They have succeeded and in partnership with Fordham University Press have made available some of the seminal presentations from the 2003 and 2005 symposia in Lincoln Revisited: New Insights from the Lincoln Forum.
The luminary scholars whose lectures are presented in text-friendly prose include Jean Baker, Daniel Mark Epstein, Joseph R. Fornieri, William C. Harris, Harold Holzer, John F. Marszalek, William Lee Miller, Lucas E. Morel, Geoffrey Perret, Matthew Pinsker, Jean Edward Smith, John Y. Simon, Edward Steers Jr., Craig L. Symonds, Michael Vorenberg, Ronald C. White Jr., Frank J. Williams and Garry Wills.
Between the pages of Lincoln Revisited readers can select any number of the 18 exceptional essays and explore some of the myriad aspects of Lincoln. Fornieri, Morel, Baker and White reflect on the always controversial subject of Lincoln’s faith and its relationship to his practice as a politician and statesman.
Holzer, ever the iconographer, offers a look at the place of photography in shaping the electable Lincoln as well as the Lincoln we have come to know. Symonds provides a window to a little-studied field, the relationship between Lincoln and his naval officers.
Pinsker shares his insight on Lincoln’s life in Washington, D.C., and the White House with an examination of his quarter of the presidency lived at the Lincoln Cottage on the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home.
Williams brings his judicial skills to bear with an assessment of Lincoln’s suspension of civil liberties in a timely analysis comparing Lincoln’s struggle with that of President George W. Bush and the current War on Terror.
With regard to Lincoln and American culture Epstein reflects on Lincoln and his relationship to Walt Whitman, Wills looks at Lincoln’s relationship with Henry Adams, and Steers offers another look at the assassination, this time from the Confederate vantage point, with regard to military matters.
Marszalek provides insight to Lincoln’s relationship with Gen. Henry Halleck, Smith considers Lincoln and Grant, while Perret compares Lincoln’s leadership skills with Grant again, Douglas MacArthur and John F. Kennedy.
In the arena of Lincoln scholarship and foreign relations. Harris presents an assessment of Lincoln’s policies vis a vis the English and French, while Miller and Vorenberg, take on issues of race, the former investigating the hanging of slave trader Nathaniel Gordon while the latter tackles an always tough Lincoln nugget, Emancipation. Finally, Simon speculates as to the role Mormonism may have played in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
Each essay is clear, concise and provides good fodder for serious consideration. Hopefully the arrangement between the Lincoln Forum and Fordham University Press will continue so that those unable to make the annual trek to Gettysburg can share in the feast of delectable Lincoln scholarship.