Summary Of Abraham Lincoln The Man Behind The Myths

Vicki Lu

IB HOA 1

Byrne

1/29/13

Throughout the book Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths, Stephen B. Oates displays a well organized, and factual biography of Abraham Lincoln that conveys the hardships that Lincoln overcame while he was in presidency. The set up of his book is the time line of Lincoln’s life from his childhood, to his middle years, and ending with his death at Ford’s Theater. But more historically, this book is based on slavery, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln’s Inaugural Address, Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, but this all ties into Lincoln wanting to become the president to help his country.

The start of the books begins with Abraham Lincoln as a middle aged man. Oates states how he is very secretive and from one

He disliked how the south was creating new slave states, and how it was slowly making slavery permanent in America, this led him to become the head of the Republicans to fight for what he believed in. Another boulder was how stubborn the South was to end slavery. It is true that they needed it because of all the farm land and labor that was needed to be done, it would just be easier to do the chores by utilizing slaves, but Lincoln believed that, that was unethical to use people to their advantage. To overcome this, Lincoln made the Emancipation and the Gettysburg Address (consisting of 4 major parts; to help the government, “all men created equal” (Oates 138), outlaw old leaders in rebel Dixie, and lastly obeying the Emancipation Proclamation) these were a mandatory part of Reconstruction. There is also the dispute between Douglas and Lincoln that Lincoln “desired intermarriage and racial mongrelization” (Oates 71), stated by Douglas. Lincoln just wanted to end slavery, he didn’t wanted to have anything to do with personal choices of african americans and white; ultimately making it look like he supported slavery, this infuriated him.From that statement people started to label Lincoln as a white supremacist, which backlashes everything that Lincoln had always fought for. In addition to that statement, Douglas also held a high position than Lincoln at that time, so there was nothing

It was a bit confusing in the beginning, because it started with historians criticizing how awful of a president Lincoln was and these people made misconceptions of Lincoln. The beginning summed up what the whole book was about, and I didn’t understand where the book really “began.” It tended to jump around with his age in the beginning start when he was a child to when he was 40, back to 21, then it started to go in order when the book “actually started”. Even though it was a bit out of order and confusing, it was very effective because he still allowed it to transition smoothly from. In addition, I was fully engaged the whole time and the book did not go off track; any statement that Oates made linked into the next paragraph making me intrigued by the facts displayed about Abraham Lincoln. . The book is also balanced with its facts and commentary. In the beginning there were a bit too much bias opinions in my opinion, but when the book started to really get into Lincoln’s story, it evened out. Oates displayed some commentary now and then and the commentaries of other Lincoln historians, but always backed it up with facts just in case the reader had any doubts.Throughout the book, there were no illustrations, or charts, but Oates does make convey good imagery throughout his writing, so I could imagine the scenery of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. The book covers