Lincoln

This series looks at key historical figures and their reputations and tries to discover the reality behind them. It uses both primary and secondary sources and is intended for the 14-17 year old reader and to be used as a basis for GCSE project work and as background reading to class work. The marginal notes and questions running parallel with the text provide useful information to help the reader evaluate and interpret the evidence. Visual evidence in the form of photographs, paintings and cartoons is also included. Abraham Lincoln is seen as the man who kept the United States together during the Civil War and who freed the slaves. But Lincoln was not without his critics, both during his lifetime and since, and this book sets out to investigate the man behind the myth. This work examines some of the controversies surrounding the life of Abraham Lincoln by the use of quotations from his own words and his contemporaries, to establish whether the assessment of him is justified and whether, if he had not been assassinated, his reputation would have survived untarnished in the period of reconstruction following the Civil War.
The book also includes the views of later historians and commentators. It is divided into four sections which cover his reputation, the background, the interpretations and finally the conclusions.