A Lincoln Reading List
2009 is the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, so it’s the perfect year to catch up on reading about what made him arguably our greatest president and certainly our favorite lawyer-president.
This list compiles recommendations from our authors:
Union and Emancipation: Essays on Politics and Race in the Civil War Era, David W. Blight and Brooks D. Simpson. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997.
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Michael Burlingame. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
Act of Justice: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War, Burrus Carnahan. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
The Portable Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Delbanco, ed. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.
Lincoln the Lawyer, Brian Dirck. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
Lincoln, David Herbert Donald. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1995.
The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder, and the Making of a Great President, Julie M. Fenster. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.
In America’s Lawyer-Presidents: From Law Office to Oval Office: “Abraham Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer,” Paul Finkelman, and “Selected Cases of A. Lincoln, Esq., Attorney and Counsellor at Law,” John A. Lupton. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race, George M. Fredrickson. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America, Allen C. Guelzo. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment, Harold Holzer and Sara Vaughn Gabbard, eds. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007.
The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views, Harold Holzer, Edna Green Medford and Frank J. Williams. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.
Lincoln and the Court, Brian McGinty. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.
With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen B.Oates. New York: Mentor Books, 1978.
The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, Philip Shaw Paluden. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994.
A. Lincoln, Esquire: A Shrewd, Sophisticated Lawyer in His Time, Allen D. Spiegel. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2002.
An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, Mark E. Steiner. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006.
In Tender Consideration: Women, Families, and the Law in Abraham Lincoln’s Illinois, Daniel W. Stowell, ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln: Legal Documents and Cases, Daniel W. Stowell, ed. 4 vols. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008.
Abraham Lincoln: A Biography, Benjamin P. Thomas. New York: Knopf, 1952.
Judging Lincoln, Frank J. Williams. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002.
