Eric Foner , editor. Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World . New York : W. W. Norton and Company . 2008 . Pp. 336. $27.95.

Abstract

Abraham Lincoln's bicentennial has resulted in a host of new books. In this collection of eleven essays editor Eric Foner brings together established Lincoln scholars and others new to the field to illuminate nineteenth-century America. Although the essays lack a single theme, they are grouped in four sections: the presidency, the emancipator, the person, and the political legacy. James M. McPherson's “A. Lincoln, Commander in Chief” opens the volume and serves as an introduction to McPherson's most recent work. Always a pleasure to read, McPherson takes a broad approach to understand Lincoln's leadership by considering both political and military factors. This is followed by Mark E. Neely, Jr.'s “The Constitution and Civil Liberties under Lincoln,” which builds on his work contrasting Lincoln's record with that of Jefferson Davis. In this essay, Neely contrasts the positions of President Lincoln with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, as well as those of the Republican and Democratic parties. The contrast serves to the president's benefit. Sean Wilentz's “Abraham Lincoln and Jacksonian Democracy” portrays an egalitarian Whig who became more Jacksonian after 1854. Harold Holzer's “Visualizing Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln as Student, Subject, and Patron of the Visual Arts” concludes the first section of the volume by showing how America's sixteenth president used mass-produced lithographs and photographs to his political advantage.