Looking for Lincoln or Warlord

Looking for Lincoln: The Making of an American Icon

Author: Peter W Kunhardt

In honor of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, an extensively researched, lavishly illustrated consideration of the myths, memories, and questions that gathered around our most beloved—and our most enigmatic—president in the years between his assassination and the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922. A sequel to the enormously successful Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, Looking for Lincoln picks up where the previous book left off, examining how our sixteenth president’s legend came into being.

Availing themselves of a vast collection of both published and never-before-seen materials, the authors—the fourth and fifth generations of a family of Lincoln scholars—bring into focus the posthumous portrait of Lincoln that took hold in the American imagination, becoming synonymous with the nation’s very understanding of itself. Told through the voices of those who knew the man—Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites, neighbors and family members, adversaries and colleagues—and through stories carefully selected from long-forgotten newspapers, magazines, and family scrapbooks, Looking for Lincoln charts the dramatic epilogue to Lincoln’s extraordinary life when, in a process fraught with jealousy, greed, and the struggle for power, the scope of his historical significance was taking shape.

In vibrant and immediate detail, the authors chart the years when Americans struggled to understand their loss and rebuild their country. Here is a chronicle of the immediate aftermath of the assassination; the private memories of those closest to the slain president; thedifficult period between 1876 and 1908, when a tired nation turned its back on the former slaves and betrayed Lincoln’s teachings; and the early years of the twentieth century when Lincoln’s popularity soared as African Americans fought to reclaim the ideals he espoused.

Looking for Lincoln will deeply enhance our understanding of the statesman and his legacy, at a moment when the timeless example of his leadership is more crucial than ever.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

The Kunhardts use the family's vast collection of Lincoln photographs, started in the late 19th century by Frederick Hill Meserve, combined with concise commentary and valuable first-hand accounts, to illustrate Lincoln's postmortem life. The Kunhardts trace the circuitous route by which the assassinated head of state morphed into a cherished figure as much of myth as of history. The profusely and beautifully illustrated volume-the companion to a PBS special to air in winter 2009-is loaded with rarities: never before seen letters, photos from the 1901 unearthing and re-interment of Lincoln's remains, and first-hand reminiscences from numerous Lincoln intimates, all of them rich with telling detail about the man. Fascinating anecdotes abound, such as Robert Lincoln's shunning of the dedication of the memorial housing the presumed Lincoln birth cabin, which he said commemorated nothing but the "degradation and uncleanliness" of his father's humble beginnings. All in all, the Kunhardts' book represents a visual and literary feast for all devotees of the sacred national idol that is Lincoln. 910 color photos and illus.
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Frederick J. Augustyn Jr. - Library Journal

Billed as a sequel to the Kunhardts' Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, this large-format volume, the companion to a 2009 PBS Lincoln bicentennial special of the same name, is a pictorial study of the evolution of the legend of Lincoln from his death to the death of Robert Todd Lincoln in 1926. It was during this time that Lincoln developed from a more partisan and regional figure of the Civil War into a metaphor for national unity after his 1909 centennial. Part of the continuing quest to understand the "real Lincoln," this book is lavishly illustrated with over 900 photos and drawings from archival collections and publications, while also providing textual narrative on how Lincoln was remembered differently by his friends, adversaries, neighbors, and family members and in popular culture forms such as statues, sermons, and celebrations. The Kunhardts (Peter and Peter Jr. get equal billing with Philip) recognize that both the historically accurate and the mythically symbolic Lincoln are significant. In assessing and bringing to light writings and artifacts pointing out the power of the memory of Lincoln, they remind us of Lincoln's not-always-laudatory iconic status, a touchstone for the varying ways Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites defined their own places in American society. Not addressed here are the Lincoln legend in the performing arts and songsheets of the era covered (or in movies and TV that followed) or Lincoln's place internationally as an icon of America. This volume will find a welcome spot on the shelves of public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ7/08.]

Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945

Author: Carlo Dest

Carlo D'Este's brilliant new biography examines Winston Churchill through the prism of his military service as both a soldier and a warlord: a descendant of Marlborough who, despite never having risen above the rank of lieutenant colonel, came eventually at age sixty-five to direct Britain's military campaigns as prime minister and defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito for the democracies. Warlord is the definitive chronicle of Churchill's crucial role as one of the world's most renowned military leaders, from his early adventures on the North-West Frontier of colonial India and the Boer War through his extraordinary service in both World Wars.

Even though Churchill became one of the towering political leaders of the twentieth century, his childhood ambition was to be a soldier. Using extensive, untapped archival materials, D'Este reveals important and untold observations from Churchill's personal physician, as well as other colleagues and family members, in order to illuminate his character as never before. Warlord explores Churchill's strategies behind the major military campaigns of World War I and World War II-both his dazzling successes and disastrous failures-while also revealing his tumultuous relationships with his generals and other commanders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower.

As riveting as the man it portrays, Warlord is a masterful, unsparing portrait of one of history's most fascinating and influential leaders during what was arguably the most crucial event in human history.

The New York Times - Robert Kagan

Winston Churchill's life spanned the last decades of the British Empire, and to read Carlo D'Este's enjoyable new biography is to recall the sequence of disasters that befell Britain between the final days of the Victorian era and its brush with extinction in World War II. American pundits these days speculate rather glibly about national decline and imagine that, if it comes, it is something that can be safely and intelligently managed. But genuine geopolitical decline is a serious and often deadly business. Churchill spent the better part of his life fending off increasingly dire threats to Britain's place in the world, and then to its very existence as an independent nation. A biography of Churchill is in some ways a biography of the British people, with all their remarkable successes, devastating failures, occasional silliness, arrogance and insouciance, and finally their incredible bravery.

Publishers Weekly

D'Este (Patton: A Genius for War) is a master analyst of 20th-century military leadership, and this book may be his finest yet. Showing a remarkable knowledge of archival and printed sources, he tells the complex story of a statesman and warrior. As a child, Winston Churchill was "headstrong, highly opinionated, and virtually impossible to control." Those traits remained throughout a life he often regretted having spent in council chambers rather than on battlefields. His experiences as a young man in India, South Africa and the Sudan left him with both an abhorrence of war and a passion for soldiering. D'Este skillfully demonstrates how these traits shaped Churchill's persistent advocacy for preparedness and negotiation as means of averting war and his determination to see war through when deterrence failed. D'Este camouflages neither personal weaknesses nor questionable policies. But his expertise as a military historian provides contexts too often lacking in evaluating Churchill's roles in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, 1940's Battle of Britain and the D-Day invasion in 1944. Elegantly written, this tour de force belongs in every library addressing the 20th century. 16 pages of b&w photos, 9 maps. (Nov.)

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Ed Goedeken - Library Journal

Over 500 books have been written-just in English-recounting the life and career of Winston Churchill, undoubtedly one of the greatest men of the 20th century. Thus one might ask whether we need yet another thick tome dedicated to his exploits. In this case, yes, we do! D'Este, a military historian of tremendous skills, has already crafted impressive and massive biographies of George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower. Now, he turns his manifold talents to examining the military career of Churchill, who considered himself above all a soldier first and a statesman second. Churchill never forgot his experiences either in the Boer War as a young soldier or in the decidedly unhappy Gallipoli Campaign in World War I, where his decisions as First Lord of the Admiralty led to the remarkable and deadly debacle in the Dardanelles. These wartime events shaped his strategic approach to the second and greatest of world wars, a conflict where his strengths and weaknesses as a leader would be clearly shown. D'Este has produced an outstanding work that should take its rightful place alongside the dozens of other studies of this most remarkable statesman. Highly recommended for all collections.