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Assassination of Lincoln: History and Myth

Lincoln looms over us today, much larger than life, and is typically represented in the somber tone and grand mood of the imposing Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., a building which in its stately magnificence and awesome dignity indeed recalls the temples of the ancient Greeks to their gods Poseidon and Zeus. Abraham Lincoln is not just another President to us; he has become virtually a god.

It was not always so. During his tenure, Lincoln was at times very unpopular on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, and was widely insulted for stupidity, vacillations, extremism, moderation, disregard for human life, even ugliness. It is perhaps not so surprising that he should be appreciated so deeply today; only in distant retrospect can something as cataclysmic and divisive as the Civil War be understood and assessed. However, the deification of Lincoln began long before today's cool historical assessment; it began immediately with his assassination.

The assassination of Lincoln changed his place in history irrevocably, transforming him from a cunning politician into a selfless martyr, and the mist of myth was thrown up around him almost instantly, virtually issuing from the barrel of the assassin's gun.

This unique book, first published in the nineteen-twenties, was the first, and remains perhaps the best, telling of the tale of Lincoln's death and the events immediately following it. Written by a scholar familiar with Frazier's famous Golden Bough but also possessing a journalist's ear for a great yarn and reporter's skeptical nature, it combines the best of all three: journalism, mythology, and history.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 367
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781567314090
  • Genres
  • history, presidents
  • Release date
  • 2000