The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Author: Thomas J Dilorenzo
A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend.
Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provacative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its visegrip on our republic to this very day.
You will discover a side of Lincoln that you were probably never taught in school—a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody, and perhaps, unnecessary war.
"A devastating critique of America's most famous president."
—Joseph Sobran, commentator and nationally syndicated columnist
"Today's federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Thomas J. DiLorenzo gives an account of How this come about in The Real Lincoln."
—Walter E. Williams, from the foreword
"A peacefully negotiated secession was the best way to handle all the problems facing Americans in 1860. A war of coercion was Lincoln's creation. It sometimes takes a century or more to bring an important historical event into perspective. This study does just that and leaves the reader asking, 'Why didn't we know this before?'"
—Donald Livingston, professor of philosophy, Emory University
"Professor DiLorenzo has penetrated to the very heart and core of American history with a laser beam of fact and analysis."
—Clyde Wilson, professor of history, University of South Carolina, and editor, The John C. Calhoun Papers
Booknews
Dismissing Lincoln's concern for the inequities of institution of slavery as a political chimera, DiLorenzo (economics, Loyola College in Maryland) argues that Lincoln's real agenda in prosecuting the Civil War was to further the Hamiltonian project of centralizing government function in an economically interventionist state. The idea that slavery was central to the Civil War is discounted by reference to the possibilities of compensated emancipation, glossing over the fact that the Southern states seceded over the issue of the expansion of slavery to the territories. Lincoln's real motivation was an adherence to Henry Clay's economic agenda, which pitted the Republicans against the "states' rights Jeffersonians." Other chapters look at the theoretical basis of the right to secede and criticize (from a libertarian viewpoint) the economic legacy left by Lincoln. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life
Author: Richard Florida
It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where we live doesn’t matter. We can innovate just as easily from a ski chalet in Aspen or a beachhouse in Provence as in the office of a Silicon Valley startup.
According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Globalization is not flattening the world; in fact, place is increasingly relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. Where we live determines the jobs and careers we have access to, the people we meet, and the “mating markets” in which we participate. And everything we think we know about cities and their economic roles is up for grabs.
Who’s Your City? offers the first available city rankings by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, families, and empty-nesters to reside. Florida’s insights and data provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans who move each year, illuminating everything from what those choices mean for our everyday lives to how we should go about making them.
Business Week - Michelle Conlin
If you think working remotely means where you live-your place-doesn't matter anymore, Florida correctly shows us-with his trademark data and analysis-why you're dead wrong. The book is a superb treatise on the location paradox: the idea that as the world becomes more mobile, the more decisive location becomes...We learn why San Francisco is the best city for young singles; why Washington D.C. is the best place to raise kids; and why New York City is one of the top spots for retirees. Something to look forward to!
Publishers Weekly
Choosing a spouse and choosing a career are important life decisions-but perhaps even more predictive of our all-round personal happiness is our choice of living location, argues Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class) in this informative if somewhat dry tome. As globalization makes the world effectively smaller, economic growth concentrates in certain mega-regions of large "superstar" cities, leaving other regions in the proverbial dust. The areas where we live are also affected by our increasingly mobile culture, housing priorities that change as we age (from starter homes to family-friendly suburbs to empty nests and finally retirement centers) and the global economy. Few of the author's conclusions are new-people gather where they can make friends with others like them, personality types tend to cluster-type A to urban areas, type B to rural-and the book's tone wanders from broad, Friedmanesque discussion of the world economy to home-buying advice as well as statistic-and-theory-heavy text as though unsure of its intended audience. Yet the author opens up a complex, underexamined subject along the way. (Mar.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationRichard Drezen <P>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. - School Library Journal
If you think that choosing a life partner or even finding the "ideal" job are the two most important decisions you'll ever make, Florida (business & creativity, Rotman Sch. of Management, Univ. of Toronto; The Rise of the Creative Class) would like to add still a third consideration: choosing a place to live. He has done extensive research on the significance of one's location, marshaling extensive data to support his thesis that "where we live affects every aspect of our lives," with the caveat that if this decision isn't made carefully, the consequences may adversely impact one's life for years to come. The book pulls together findings from vast amounts of research to dissect the reasons why people opt to live where they do. Part of the author's focus is on various kinds of community types, such as "Strollerville," "Ethnic Enclave," "Family Land" and others, weighing the respective pros and cons of each. The last chapter offers a ten-step framework, intended to "help people make better choices about where to live." Although the text is occasionally overloaded with trendy demographic jargon, this thought-provoking and seminal work will surely be studied, not only by scholars but more importantly by consumers pondering a move. Following Florida's advice should aid them in that quest. Highly recommended for all libraries.
What People Are Saying
Tim Harford
The world is not flat, and Richard Florida is the man to tell you why where you choose to live is more important than ever. Passionate and thoughtful, this book is an indispensable guide to the way our cities really work. The spirit of Jane Jacobs lives on. (Tim Harford, Financial Times columnist and author of The Logic of Life)
Table of Contents:
1 The Question of WherePart I:Why Place Matters
2 Spiky World
3 Rise of the Mega-Region
4 The Clustering Force
Part II:The Wealth of Place
5 The Mobile and the Rooted
6 Where the Brains Are
7 Job-Shift
8 Superstar Cities
Part III:The Geography of Happiness
9 Shiny Happy Places
10 Beyond Maslow’s City
Part IV:Where We Live Now
12 Three Big Moves
13 The Young and the Restless
14 Married with Children
15 When the Kids Are Gone
16 Place Yourself
Acknowledgments
Appendices
Notes
Index
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