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Judging Lincoln
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Description
Judging Lincoln collects nine of the most insightful essays on the topic of the sixteenth president as written over the past twenty years by Frank J. Williams, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and one of the nation’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln. For Judge Williams, Lincoln remains the central figure of the American experience—past, present, and future. With this collection, he boldly reassesses Lincoln’s legacy as we enter the twenty-first century.
Williams begins with a survey of the interest in—and influence of—Lincoln both at home and abroad and then moves into an analysis of Lincoln’s personal character with respect to his ability to foster relationships of equality among his intimates. Collectively, these first two sections demonstrate that the president’s international legacy as the Great Emancipator is well deserved.
The third section addresses Lincoln’s leadership abilities during the span of his career, with particular emphasis on the Civil War. Classifying Lincoln’s leadership has been difficult, as he could at times adopt the stance of autocrat or democrat, conservative or liberal, idealist or Machiavellian. Williams defends the value of each stance within its historical context. Next, Williams enters into a qualitative comparison between Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill to explain why Lincoln not only ranks as America’s greatest leader but also holds that same position among the pantheon of all the world’s democratic leaders.
Williams concludes this volume with an essay (written with Mark E. Neely Jr.) on collecting Lincoln artifacts as another means of preserving and fostering the Lincoln legacy. The quality of Williams’s own extensive collection is evidenced by the forty-nine illustrations included in this book from the Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana.
“Though thousands of studies have already attempted to describe, explain, applaud, or criticize Abraham Lincoln. . . . [Judging Lincoln] offers fresh insights. . . . . These nine essays examine topics of interest to the modern reader, from Lincoln’s attitude toward women, civil liberties, and the 13th Amendment to a unique article written with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Mark E. Neely Jr. on collecting Lincoln memorabilia. Based on a variety of primary and secondary sources and adorned with rare historic illustrations not published elsewhere, this work is recommended for libraries that wish to have a truly comprehensive collection of materials on this President.”—Library Journal
“Williams is plainly a cut above unrefined Lincoln enthusiasm because he recognizes the difficulty of pinning Lincoln down. . . . Like the work of Harold Holzer, Williams’ book will be popular with fellow Lincoln fans.” —Booklist
“Many of Judge Williams’s lectures have appeared in print before, both in journals and in important collections of the papers and proceedings of scholarly conferences. What has been lacking—until now—is a single volume of his best work. Its arrival promises to reveal, to a wider audience than ever, his highly original perspective, his gift for comprehensive analysis of complex legal and political issues, and his relentless curiosity about the deepest, often least studied, aspects of Abraham Lincoln’s life and career. Lincoln scholars used to be referred to as ‘authorities.’ It is a title one cannot help but feel rests comfortably on Frank J. Williams’s shoulders: he is an authoritative figure in every sense of the phrase.”—Harold Holzer, from the Foreword “Judging Lincoln contains many fresh and provocative insights on the life and times of our sixteenth president. Chief Justice Frank Williams of the Rhode Island Supreme Court judges Lincoln with scrupulous and impartial empathy, not overlooking his mistakes but in the end making it clear why the architect of Union and freedom was our greatest president.”—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era “Both historians and general readers will welcome this treasury from one of the wisest and most original students of Abraham Lincoln and his times. This elegant and fascinating book confirms Frank Williams’s important place in the firmament of Lincoln scholars and does a brilliant job of showing us why Lincoln’s ideals and methods of leadership are so necessary for Americans to understand almost a century and a half after his passing.”—Michael Beschloss, presidential historian
Frank J. Williams is chief justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and a well-known expert on Abraham Lincoln. He has authored or edited eleven books, contributed chapters to several others, and lectured on the subject throughout the country. At the same time, he has amassed a private library and archive that ranks among the nation’s largest and finest Lincoln collections. Williams is the founding chairman of the Lincoln Forum, the current president of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, and a past president of the Abraham Lincoln Association and the Lincoln Group of Boston. In 2000, Chief Justice Williams was appointed by Congress to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to plan events commemorating the two hundredth birthday of Abraham Lincoln in 2009. Harold Holzer, co-chair of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and author and editor of many books on Lincoln, provides a foreword to this volume. John Y. Simon, executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Association and editor of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, provides the collection’s epilogue.
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| Dimensions | 1 × 6 × 9 in |
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