Bøger af Michael Burlingame

An enlightening narrative exploring an oft-overlooked aspect of the sixteenth president's life, An American Marriage reveals the tragic story of Abraham Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd.

Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president" as well as "the first who rose above the prejudice of his times and country." This narrative history of Lincoln's personal interchange with Black people over the course his career reveals a side of the sixteenth president that, until now, has not been fully explored or understood.

An enlightening narrative exploring an oft-overlooked aspect of the sixteenth presidents life, An American Marriage reveals the tragic story of Abraham Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd.Abraham Lincoln was apparently one of those men who regarded ';connubial bliss' as an untenable fantasy. During the Civil War, he pardoned a Union soldier who had deserted the army to return home to wed his sweetheart. As the president signed a document sparing the soldiers life, Lincoln said: ';I want to punish the young manprobably in less than a year he will wish I had withheld the pardon.' Based on thirty years of research, An American Marriage describes and analyzes why Lincoln had good reason to regret his marriage to Mary Todd. This revealing narrative shows that, as First Lady, Mary Lincoln accepted bribes and kickbacks, sold permits and pardons, engaged in extortion, and peddled influence. The reader comes to learn that Lincoln wed Mary Todd because, in all likelihood, she seduced him and then insisted that he protect her honor. Perhaps surprisingly, the 5'2' Mrs. Lincoln often physically abused her 6'4' husband, as well as her children and servants; she humiliated her husband in public; she caused him, as president, to fear that she would disgrace him publicly. Unlike her husband, she was not profoundly opposed to slavery and hardly qualifies as the ';ardent abolitionist' that some historians have portrayed. While she providid a useful stimulus to his ambition, she often ';crushed his spirit,' as his law partner put it. In the end, Lincoln may not have had as successful a presidency as he didwhere he showed a preternatural ability to deal with difficult peopleif he had not had so much practice at home.

Published to a flurry of praise--and consternation--from Lincoln scholars, Burlingame's book takes a hard and unsentimental look at, among other things, Abraham Lincoln's excruciating yet fruitful midlife crisis, his marriage to a dishonest woman who often embarrassed and sometimes physically abused him, his estrangement from his father, his explosive temper, and his aversion to women.