The best book on abraham lincoln

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of Lincoln biographies ? Don’t know where to start ?

Abraham Lincoln books far outnumber those about any other US president.  Here are ten of the best Lincoln biographies …

1. Lincoln
by David Herbert Donald.

Many critics agree that if you are only going to read one Abraham Lincoln biography this is the one to read…

Abraham Lincoln Biographies
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UPDATED January 2024 – To clean up formatting issues.

At least 15,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. If you wish to learn about the man who led the North during the American Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 then you are not going to be restricted by choice. (AbeBooks alone has more than 67,000 copies of books with ‘Abraham Lincoln’ in the title).

No-one knows exactly how many books have been written about Honest Abe but in 2012 Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership in Washington DC constructed a 34-foot pillar of unique titles about Lincoln and it contained more than 15,000 books.

Books have been written about his childhood, his politics, his wartime leadership, his married life, his death, his speeches, his generals and admirals, his writing, his mental health and his legal career. There are biographies, history books, picture books, children’s books and fictional novels based on his life.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin has received a great deal of attention. In 2008, the then-Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama declared, if elected, he would want “a team of rivals” in his Cabinet. “I don’t want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone,” he told Time Magazine. Obama, a keen reader, acknowledged the influence of Goodwin's book several times as he campaigned to become president.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald, published in 1996, is also widely acknowledged as one of the better biographies of the man. Manhunt by James L. Swanson is a readable book about the murder of the president, the motives of his killer John Wilkes Booth and the desperate manhunt over 12 days.

If you want to completely shake up history, then Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith might appeal (and that’s fiction by the way). Gore Vidal also wrote a historical novel

There are more than 16,000 books about Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president. You’ve agreed to choose the best reading about Old Abe and I insisted that we discuss your thrilling Lincoln on the Verge among the five. Before we hit the books, please introduce our international audience to Abraham Lincoln.

There’s so much to admire about Abraham Lincoln. He comes along at a crucial moment, when every American knew a crisis was coming. Almost all historians would say he handled that crisis extremely well. He prevailed in a military contest, he deepened democracy, he expanded education, and he strengthened infrastructure. He expanded the role of the president in American life. And most importantly of all, he dealt a fatal blow to slavery.

His surprising literary capacity, which few knew about when they voted for him, was key to the impact he had. As president, he delivered extraordinary public addresses that are Shakespearian in some ways and biblical in other ways.

He’s emotionally interesting. Abraham Lincoln has more highs and lows than perhaps any other president. He’s very strong, but vulnerable also. That makes him an attractive central figure for a history book. And he’s tragically struck down at the moment of his greatest triumph, immediately after winning the Civil War. That seems almost like a plot twist out of Shakespeare. So he continues to fascinate.

When Abraham Lincoln ran for president in 1860, his supporters highlighted his bootstraps biography. His rise from a log cabin in Kentucky to the White House is astonishing. What are those basic biographical facts?

His campaign brilliantly turned his disadvantages into advantages. He had a very low level of education, just a few years of school here and there. He didn’t go to high school or university. He had a negligible role in national politics before he became president–just one two-year term as a congressman that was 12 years in the past. He lacked leg

No figure looms over the Civil War as Abraham Lincoln does, and some 17,000 books—from “spiritual biographies” to business management guides—have been published to attest to the fact. The greatest of these were written by Lincoln himself: I mean the countless collections of his speeches, notes, and letters that have appeared regularly and redundantly since 1865.

But the vast majority of lesser books can be traced back to a single volume. Biblical scholars like to talk about “Q,” a long-vanished compilation of the sayings and stories of Jesus that the Gospel writers evidently used as source material in composing their separate accounts. Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (1889) is the Q of Lincoln literature, the wellspring of much of what we know, or think we know, about Lincoln’s character and pre-presidential life. It is a rambling, eccentric, ill-proportioned, and oddly beautiful biography, written by Lincoln’s final law partner, William Herndon.

They were an odd couple. Lincoln called his partner Billy and Herndon called him Mr. Lincoln. Where the senior partner was cool and reserved and ironical, Herndon was high-spirited and earnest and easily swayed. Lincoln never tipped his hand in matters of religion and theology; Herndon shocked the locals of Springfield, Illinois, by loudly declaring himself an infidel and free-thinker. Lincoln was a teetotaler and Herndon drank—episodically but heroically.

Their difference in character was well illustrated when a young man came to their law office bearing a new autograph book. Lincoln wrote simply, “Today, Feb. 23, 1858, the owner honored me with the privilege of writing the first name in this book—A. Lincoln.” Herndon autographed the page in a much larger hand: “The struggles of this age and succeeding generations for God and man—Religion—Humanity and Liberty with all their complex and grand relations—may they triumph and. . . .” It went on from there.