One chapter of my new book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, is called Institutionalizing Science. Much of the focus is on the Smithsonian Institution’s first Secretary, Joseph Henry, and his relationship with Abraham Lincoln. I am very happy that Marc Rothenberg, the former Editor of The Papers of Joseph Henry, as well as past Historian at the National Academy of Sciences, has provided the following praise for the book:
This is the first in-depth study of Abraham Lincoln’s interest in technology and science and how that interest impacted his life and his Presidency. This is not simply a biography. Drawing on his extensive research in both primary and secondary sources, Kent adds new nuance and context to our understanding of the place of technology and science in American culture in the antebellum period and during the Civil War. He presents Lincoln as a man of his times, aware of, and sensitive to, the technological innovations and scientific discoveries which were helping to shape modern America. Indeed, as Kent demonstrates, Lincoln was a catalyst for some of that transformation wrought by science and technology.
Rothenberg was Editor of the Joseph Henry Project for over 20 years and was on the Smithsonian staff for thirty. The project conducted a worldwide search for documents to supplement those already held by the Smithsonian, eventually obtaining documents from over 300 repositories in 17 nations. Overall, there were nearly 136,000 documents, all of which were computer indexed for searchability. Eleven printed volumes were issued. They became a valuable resource for my research of this book. Rothenberg clearly is an expert on Joseph Henry. After getting a bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Villanova, he received his PhD in History of Science from Bryn Mawr.
Once the Joseph Henry Project was complete, Rothenberg moved on to be historian at the National Academy of Sciences, another institution signed into existence by Abraham Lincoln, and which plays an important role in my Institutionalize Science chapter. I first met Rothenberg at a private club in Washington, DC, where he graciously treated me to lunch and gave me the benefit of his experience for over three hours. He read an early version of this chapter and provided valuable feedback, so it was a given that I would ask him to read the galley of the full book, after which he provided the above praise. A shorter version of his remarks will appear as a blurb on the back cover of the book when it is released on September 1st.
I’ve been honored to have received advanced praise not only from Rothenberg but from prominent Lincoln experts Harold Holzer and Michael Burlingame. Lincoln biographer and journalist Sidney Blumenthal wrote a wonderful foreword to the book. Click on the links to see what they said. And that isn’t all. Several other well-known Lincoln experts provided blurbs. I’ll talk about those in future posts.
Release date for Lincoln: The Fire of Genius is September 1, 2022.
While you’re here, check out the various posts on Lincolnian.org related to our recent Lincoln Memorial Centennial program. For those who missed it, C-SPAN will be replaying the event at 3 pm on June 18th on CSPAN2.
The book is available for pre-order on the Rowman & Littlefield website (Lyons Press is a trade imprint of Rowman). You can also pre-order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). Release date is scheduled for September 1, 2022.
The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]
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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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