Tag: Daniel Day-Lewis

One Comment

Recent Abraham Lincoln book acquisitions

  By

Abraham LincolnJust this year alone (so far) I have acquired 19 books on Abraham Lincoln, plus two magazines focused on specific aspects of the Civil War. Most of these are recent copyrights. The seemingly old ones in the list that follows are actually more recent reprints (e.g., Halleck 1862 is not really a first edition from that era, much to my chagrin; and the Illinois Central Railroad Company 1905 is a modern disappointment).

The other dates reflect the actual age of the books. About half are confirmed first editions. Only one of the books in the list is signed, but ah, what a gem it is. Tony Kushner is the screenwriter for the Steven Spielberg Lincoln movie that won Daniel Day-Lewis his unprecedented third Best Actor Oscar. He signed a limited number of a special cloth edition (i.e., hardcover) at the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago. And I have one.

Okay, enjoy the list while I work on my proposal. Will be back soon.

Anderson, Dwight G. Abraham Lincoln: The Quest for Immortality 1982
Berg, Scott W. 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End 2012
Boritt, Gabor S. (ed) The Lincoln Enigma: The Changing Faces of an American Icon 2001
Cromie, Alice A Tour Guide to the Civil War: The Complete State-by-State Guide to Battlegrounds, Landmarks, Museums, Relics, and Sites (3rd Edition, Revised) 1990
Eliot, Alexander Abraham Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography 1985
Gary, Ralph Following in Lincoln’s Footsteps: A Complete Annotated Reference to Hundreds of Historical Sites Visited by Abraham Lincoln 2001
Halleck, Henry Wager Elements of Military Art and Science 1862
Hartwig, D. Scott To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of September 1862 2012
Hirsch, David and Van Haften, Dan Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln, and the Structure of Reason 2012
Holzer, Harold Lincoln: President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 2008
Illinois Central Railroad Company Abraham Lincoln As Attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad Company 1905
Kushner, Tony Lincoln: The Screenplay 2012
Lamon, Ward H. The Life of Abraham Lincoln; From His Birth to his Inauguration as President (Illustrated Edition) 2013
Marvel, William (ed) The Monitor Chronicles: One Sailor’s Account: Today’s Campaign to Recover the Civil War Wreck 2000
Nesbitt, Mark Ghosts of Gettysburg: Spirits, Apparitions and Haunted Places of the Battlefield 1991
Redkey, Edwin S. (Ed) A Grand Army of Black Men 1992
Spiegel, Allen D. A. Lincoln: Esquire: A Shrewd, Sophisticated Lawyer in His Time 2002
Still, William N., Jr., Taylor, John M., and Delaney, Norman C. Raiders and Blockaders: The American Civil War Afloat 1998
Wideman, John C. Naval Warfare: Courage and Combat on the Water 1997
Railroads in the War (magazine) 1991
The Hunter Becomes the Prey (magazine) 2004

More about Abraham Lincoln.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

4 Comments

Obama and Lincoln – Second Inauguration Addresses

  By

Abraham LincolnThis is Part Two of a series about inauguration speeches, in particular that of Abraham Lincoln, whose bible was used by President Barack Obama for both his first and second inaugurations. It is best to read Part One here first, then come back here. [I’ll wait].

Okay, welcome back. As I noted in the previous article, Lincoln’s first inaugural address was methodical and logical. And long. Lofty inspiration it wasn’t, but that changed in his concluding peroration in which he invoked the depth of the emotion of the moment, a pleading for all men to abandon the path to civil war:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Four years later Lincoln’s second inaugural address was the antithesis to his first – brief, introspective, war-weary. As we have seen in the movie Lincoln with Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln was hard at work trying to get the 13th Amendment to the Constitution passed, an act that would effectively codify the war-time Emancipation Proclamation. In his first address he was “devoted altogether to saving the Union without war.” But still the war came. Now, at his second inauguration, Lincoln lamented that while “both parties deprecated war,” one of them “would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.”

The sadness in his words captured the painful knowledge that over 600,000 men died during the war nearing its end, though not yet over. Lincoln ruminated over the possibility that God was allowing the war to continue as penance for the offense of slavery. While he exclaimed that “fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away,” he worried that:

if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Finally, with many in the North calling for punishment of the South during the coming reconstruction after the war, Lincoln ends with a call for constraint and compassion.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Unfortunately for the South and North alike, Lincoln’s life was taken and a period of turmoil enveloped the nation. A period that extended at least 100 years until the efforts of Martin Luther King raised again the issues of inequality to the national discourse. And here again, on this day in which President Obama took the oath of office for his second term as President on both the King bible and the Lincoln bible, the insights of Lincoln rise once again to the forefront of the discussion. In the next part of this series I will have more on President Obama’s second inauguration speech and his references to Lincoln.

If you missed it, please take a moment to read Part 1.

More about Abraham Lincoln.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

 

No comments

We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends by David Herbert Donald (A Book Review)

  By ,

Abraham LincolnSteven Spielberg’s Lincoln is based in part on the marvelous book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which explores Abraham Lincoln’s relationships with his political rivals. But another author explores the relationships Lincoln had with male friends, some of whom were his rivals and some of whom were intimate companions. David Herbert Donald, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the book Lincoln, for which he won the Lincoln Prize and had a long run on the New York Times bestseller list.  With We Are Lincoln Men Donald takes us through the rather short list of people that Abraham Lincoln could have considered to be friends.  Somewhat surprisingly given his amicability and story telling powers, Lincoln did not have many close friendships in his life.  Donald brings us into the ones he had.

He begins with a review of Lincoln’s upbringing, one which really didn’t see him build any real long lasting friendships.   Donald then spends some time parsing the one man with whom Lincoln probably had his most intense friendship, Joshua F. Speed.  Some have suggested that the Lincoln/Speed friendship was more than just friends, but Donald dispels this notion and puts us within the context of the times.  Lincoln’s long law partnership with William H. Herndon – whom he called Billy – is well documented by Donald, as was Lincoln’s friendship with Illinois Senator Orville Browning.  Browning became Lincoln’s confidant, and eventually his strongest supporter in Congress.  Even here, however, the friendship could not withstand differences in the two men’s views of Emancipation and eventually they drifted apart to the point where Lincoln thrice passed over Browning for Supreme Court Justice.

The best chapter is probably the one on Lincoln’s friendship with William H. Seward.  Initially competitors – Seward was expected to get the nomination for President that Lincoln ended up winning – the two men developed into a formidable team whose mutual respect led to an intense friendship on which each depended on the other.  Seward himself is a interesting case study, and I look forward to receiving my signed copy of Walter Stahr‘s new biography of him soon.  The final chapter examines Lincoln’s relationship with his two young private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay.  These two began with simple devotion to the president, and grew into his most ardent supporters and to some extent confidants, before becoming in the end his official biographers.

Donald does great justice to the complex interactions Lincoln had with these men.  Lincoln was not a particularly open man, and friendships came to him with difficulty. In some cases his reserve and his policies led to discord, but in all cases there was respect.  And perhaps respectfulness is a better word than friendship to describe how Lincoln interacted with those he called “friends.”  This book is an easy and a welcome read.

More about Abraham Lincoln.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

7 Comments

Lincoln – Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis Produce an Extraordinary Movie

  By ,

Abraham LincolnLincoln is a must-see movie. Steven Spielberg has taken an  icon of history and explored him in a largely unknown situation that is sure to bring new insights into the complexities of both the man and the times. Abraham Lincoln is superbly played by Daniel Day-Lewis, whose performance is both disturbing in its believability and mesmerizing in its honest transcendence of the mythology that pervades our knowledge of the 16th President.

Lincoln is nominally based on the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. While Goodwin’s epic book covers the entire period from Lincoln’s nomination to his assassination, the film focuses entirely on Lincoln’s fight to get the 13th Amendment – which bans slavery – through a contentious House of Representatives. He battles not only the Democrats who opposed the amendment, but the radical Republicans who felt it didn’t go far enough. All the while dealing with the reality that opposition to slavery did not equate with acceptance of full equality in all respects. This distinction plays out in a number of the relationships explored in the film.

Day-Lewis has magnificently captured Lincoln’s long periods of contemplation, ability to remain calm while others around him are reacting to every crisis, and a voice that may catch viewers by surprise but reflects the descriptions of Lincoln’s higher pitch and cadence. Day-Lewis successfully brings Lincoln to life as real person. No less superb is the acting of Sally Field as Mary Lincoln. Field offers us a deeper insight into the highs and lows of the woman who would help Lincoln reach his heights while bearing great burdens of her own.

The rest of the cast is equally stellar. David Strathairn as William Seward, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, and Hal Holbrook as Preston Blair all exquisitely add to the dimension of the film. In one scene where Robert Lincoln unexpectedly interrupts a critical discussion between Lincoln and Blair, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s non-verbal action in a span of a few seconds brilliantly conveys an entire history of the relationship between father and son. Likewise, the expression of Gloria Rueben as Elizabeth Keckley upon hearing Stevens’ speech reminds us that prejudice won’t be erased by a Constitutional amendment. The passions of David Oyelowo as Corporal Clark near the opening of the film bring us into the frustrations of the former slaves who, while fighting for the Union Army at the end of the war, must rely on the political gamesmanship of white men to decide whether they remain free or perhaps are returned to slavery.

The film works on many dimensions depending on your level of knowledge of the times. Some will see a great story being told, others the many layers of depth as the film explores the complex relationships between the major players and the wheeling and dealing that was required to get enough votes for passage of the amendment. Still others may see the parallels to our current situation.

I highly recommend everyone see this movie. You won’t regret it.

[Update: Lincoln received 12 Oscar nominations on January 10, 2013!]

More on Abraham Lincoln.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the posts by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

 

3 Comments

“Lincoln” Trailer – Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis do Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals”

  By

Abraham LincolnThe trailer for the long-awaited film on Abraham Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg is now out and it portends an excellent movie to follow. Based on the best-selling book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” the movie captures the tensions between the many strong wills – and many former rivals – sitting in Lincoln’s cabinet.

Goodwin’s book, which I will unequivocally state is one of the best books ever written on our 16th President, is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the dynamics between Lincoln, his cabinet, and the various factions in Congress that he fought as much as he fought the states in secession. Because of the book’s length (over 900 pages including notes), Spielberg’s Lincoln focuses on the final four months of the war, and as it turns out, of Lincoln’s life.

Lincoln is played by the amazing Daniel Day-Lewis, a two-time best actor Oscar winner for My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood. As a method actor that lives in character for the duration of filming, Lewis is expected to bring to life the inner Lincoln. Sally Field, another two-time Oscar winner, plays Mary Todd Lincoln. The rest of the cast is just as stellar, with sharp viewers also noting the presence of Hal Holbrook, who won an Emmy portraying Abraham Lincoln in a 1970s mini-series.

Given the presence of such distinguished actors, the directorial history of Steven Spielberg, and the truly magnificent book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, there are high expectations for the movie.

Fast Fact: Goodwin’s book was published in 2005, but Spielberg had already bought the film rights to it back in 2001 after Goodwin, who had been consulting on another Spielberg project, had told him of her intent to write the book. Goodwin had already won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her earlier book on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the posts by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends with the buttons below. More on Abraham Lincoln here.