Quote from bigarrow:
An educated review of the book from the amazon website, in contrast to pikers emotional review.
September 24, 2003 By David Ahlstrom "Professor - The Chinese University of Hong Kong"
Contrary to a number of reviews that have appeared on Amazon's website for this book, DiLorenzo's 'Real Lincoln' is NOT well researched; it is sloppy and looks hastily written, in spite of the fact it has been revised from its original release. In addition to the book's highly questionable interpretations of a number of abridged Lincoln quotes and a sweeping and blanket acceptance of several controversial legal and historical claims, there are numerous errors of fact and citation that mar this book and do irreparable damage to its thesis. I have written a longer review of this book elsewhere; just a small fraction of the myriad of errors is listed below. To cite a few, on p.68 in the first edition of his book DiLorenzo wrote: "In virtually every one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln made it a point to champion the nationalization of money and to demonize [Andrew] Jackson and the Democrats for their opposition to it." I challenge the Amazon reviewers that said DiLorenzo's book is "well researched" to go and read the Lincoln-Douglas debates for themselves - they will strain to find anything much on the nationalization of money and related topics. In a later edition of his book, DiLorenzo corrected this mistaken reference to the debates, but then compounded his error it by replacing it with the statement: "Lincoln frequently made it a point to champion the nationalization of money and to demonize Jackson..." Yet there are no such "frequent statements" in Lincoln's Speeches and Writings nor is any citation given to show that Lincoln "frequently" did this. Such a citation is obligatory, certainly in a "well researched" scholarly book. This book is characterized by numerous similar sweeping statements that are either unsupported or have very weak support.
A few more examples are worth noting. In chapter 3, DiLorenzo wrote that Lincoln, in a letter to his Treasury Secretary, stated that the Emancipation proclamation had no legal justification, except as a military [War Powers?] measure. But DiLorenzo did not cite from a letter, rather from a recollection of a conversation that painter Francis Carpenter had with Lincoln, and this recollection is inaccurately rendered in the book. The cited reference, Paul Angle's 'The American Reader' (p. 286 n14) is also wrong. In fact, this (incorrectly rendered) material actually comes from Angle's 1947 book 'The Lincoln Reader.' On p. 289 of the endnotes, DiLorenzo corrects the Angle book's title for us but then gets the publisher wrong, listing Da Capo Press rather than Rutgers (Da Capo was not in business in 1947). On p.14 DiLorenzo wrote "Lincoln mustered his best rhetorical talents to praise [Henry] Clay..." but the examples given came from a newspaper that Lincoln was quoting -- hardly Lincoln's rhetorical talents. Similarly, Lincoln's supposed comment about the "deportation" of blacks (frequently and incorrectly ascribed to Lincoln by sloppy writers) was actually a quote from Thomas Jefferson, which Lincoln states clearly in his famous Cooper Institute speech - and Lincoln is clearly NOT advocating this position. Rather than reading Lincoln's work for themselves, sloppy writers and Lincoln critics seem to simply read and cite each others' work and thus regularly make this and similar errors of interpretation. In addition, almost none of the references to a major primary source - Roy Basler's Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln - includes the volume number while several references to 'Collected Works' were actually references to Basler's 'Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings.'
Many more small errors emerge for those that are familiar with U.S. 19th century history. On page 293, DiLorenzo cites Federalist # 36, but the quote cited actually came from Federalist # 46. In chapter 7, DiLorenzo calls Lincoln a war criminal and describes certain rules on treatment of civilians and civilian property in war, supposedly adopted by governments at an international conference in 1863 and based on an 18th century book. At the end of the chapter he again refers to the 1863 conference and its rules, and criticizes Lincoln and the U.S. government for not following them during the Civil War. Like so much of the work in `The Real Lincoln' the 1863 conference never occurred. There was a conference on the law of war held in Geneva in 1864, but it primarily about the treatment of wounded soldiers, not civilians. The U.S. did not attend. The first conference to adopt a treaty dealing with civilians and civilian property was held at The Hague in 1899, some 30 years after the Civil War. Further, DiLorenzo gives no evidence for his claim that
"American politicians and military officers relied on the [18th century] work of Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel..." (p. 174) about the rules of war. He mentions a book by Halleck written in 1861, but that book's publishing date indicates that it hardly could have been an authoritative source that trained officers of the Civil War. DiLorenzo states that it was so used but again offers no evidence for this. The errors in this book continue relentlessly: miscites, wrong publishers, wrong pages, misquotes, sweeping statements with zero evidence offered, etc. Although The Real Lincoln's book jacket says this book is meticulously documented, it is nothing of the kind. As well known Lincoln historian Phillip Paludan has stated, 'The Real Lincoln' "subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge." If you choose to read 'The Real Lincoln' do so with the primary sources such as Basler, Fehrenbacher, Donald, Angle, and others open on the desk next to you. But rather than putting in that much effort, try reading the seminal works on the American Civil War from James McPherson, Gary Gallagher, David Herbert Donald, Phil Paludan, Gabor Boritt, Steven Woodworth, Robert Toplin, Henry Jaffa and many others. Or read some of the good books by DiLorenzo on economics. Your time will be much better spent.
Professor David Ahlstrom
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
