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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory
by Barry Schwartz.
Illustrated, index, references, notes, 367 pp., 2000. University of Chicago Press, 5801 South Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, $27.50 plus shipping.
There are books about Abraham Lincoln that are fun and easy to read, and there are those that are not. The fun and easy books often dis-cuss Lincoln’s family, his rambunctious children, his anecdotal humor and individual eccentricities. The more intriguing books about Lincoln focus on his war strategy, his political ascension or the assassination plot that killed him. While all the books about Lincoln are didactic, some are downright academic. Into this last category is where one finds Barry Schwartz’s latest book, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Mem-ory. Being labeled an "academic book" is not a derisive appellation, but an honest one. Indeed, Schwartz’s book reads like a graduate-level so-ciology textbook, often citing famous (in sociology circles anyway) psychologists and sociologists, as well as their particular theories, in an assumption that the reader easily understands who they are and what it all means. Such a writing style is cumbersome to the sociological layperson, to say the least. Yet throughout these arcane sociological references, Schwartz weaves a book of incredible insight. Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory is a book that explains not just the how of Lincoln’s rise to the definitive symbol of American national-ism and democracy, but the why. This attention to the why is what makes this book so fascinating, and so complex. Unlike the book Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, by Merrill Peterson, which lists and explains the creation of all the monuments, paintings and poems dedicated to Lincoln after his death, Schwartz delves into the mass American psyche to explain why American felt they needed to so canonize Lincoln. He expounds upon how Lincoln’s image as symbol changed from that of a flawed, backwoods lawyer, the creator of a war that caused so much death and family tragedy in the 19th century, to that of the flawed backwoods lawyer, human and democratic, the savior of all that Americans hold dear in the 20th century. Schwartz discusses the changing psychology of America through the years, the influence of society, industrialization, progressivism and history on Lincoln’s ever-changing and all-encompassing symbolism. In discussing the sociological impact of Lincoln on history, and his-tory on the image of Lincoln, Schwartz uses facts and anecdotes about Lincoln that are interesting, uncommon, and, on the whole, free from error. The writing, though obviously cogent and convincing, is also somewhat dry and tortured. On the whole, Schwartz has produced a sound, intelligent academic book that far exceeds expectations intellec-tually, but also (unfortunately) challenges the attention span.
Jason Emerson
Journalist Jason Emerson has worked as a National Park Service interpretive ranger at the Lincoln Home in Springfield, Ill., at Gettysburg and in St. Louis. His writings about Lincoln and book reviews have appeared in Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, The Marlboro Review and elsewhere.
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