Synopses & Reviews
Review
"One of our foremost cultural historians, Richard Wightman Fox, has added a new dimension to our understanding of Lincoln's place in American culture. Ranging over memorials, speeches, Hollywood movies, public demonstrations, and many other sources, he charts the ways Americans have remembered and imagined Lincoln and what the ups and downs of historical memory tell us about ourselves." Beth Colvin The Advocate
Review
"In death, Abraham Lincoln, who never joined a church, proceeded from martyrdom to culthood to sainthood. In the eminent culture historian Richard Wightman Fox offers a dazzling interpretation of how it all happened, filled with fresh ideas about our greatest president's legacy." Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
Review
"In his sweeping discussion of Lincoln's physical body (how people viewed it during his lifetime or interpreted it after his death), Richard Wightman Fox deftly traces the high-stakes cultural battle--waged in poetry, prose, art, and film--over the meaning of Lincoln, man and myth, from his day to our own." Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
Review
"Richard Wightman Fox has ingeniously portrayed the physical body of Abraham Lincoln, living and dead, in his own time and in memory, as a vehicle for evaluating Lincoln's continuing impact on American culture." James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
Review
"With subtle analysis and supple writing, preeminent cultural historian Richard Wightman Fox is especially insightful on the African-American experiences of Lincoln. Readers will sense from the first page that this is a book they will want to linger over in their delight." Michael Burlingame Wall Street Journal
Review
"It might be logical to think that there is nothing more to say about Abraham Lincoln. Richard Wightman Fox's elegant, fascinating, and moving book shows how wrong that is. With prodigious scholarship and beautiful prose, he makes clear why and how Lincoln is alive to every generation of Americans." E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Our Divided Political Heart
Review
"Fascinating...an astonishingly interesting interpretation...Fox [can be] wonderfully shrewd and often dazzling." Jill Lepore
Review
"Highly readable...Mr. Fox skillfully depicts how varied have been the uses that Americans have made of their greatest president...he deserves special credit." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"There's a slew of books to commemorate [Lincoln's] life and legacy. This is among the best of them...an intimate, moving history...A fascinating examination." Michael Burlingame Wall Street Journal
Synopsis
In a stunning feat of scholarship, insight, and engaging prose, Lincoln's Body explores how a president ungainly in body and downright "ugly" of aspect came to mean so much to us.
The very roughness of Lincoln's appearance made him seem all the more common, one of us as did his sense of humor about his own awkward physical nature. Nineteenth-century African Americans felt deep affection for their "liberator" as a "homely" man who did not hold himself apart. During Reconstruction, Southerners felt a nostalgia for the humility of Lincoln, whom they envisioned as a "conciliator." Later, teachers glorified Lincoln as a symbol of nationhood that would appeal to poor immigrants. Monument makers focused not only on the man s gigantic body but also on his nationalist efforts to save the Union, downplaying his emancipation of the slaves.
Among both black and white liberals in the 1960s and 1970s, Lincoln was derided or fell out of fashion. More recently, Lincoln has once again been embodied (as both idealist and pragmatist, unafraid of conflict and transcending it) by outstanding historians, by self-identified Lincolnian president Barack Obama, and by actor Daniel Day-Lewis all keeping Lincoln alive in a body of memory that speaks volumes about our nation.
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Synopsis
A groundbreaking, magisterial study that explains why, like Walt Whitman, we "love the President personally."
Synopsis
Even two hundred years after Abraham Lincoln's death, we, like Walt Whitman, "love the President personally."
About the Author
Richard Wightman Fox is a professor of history at the University of Southern California and the author of Jesus in America and Trials of Intimacy, among other books. He lives in Venice, California.