ABRAHAM LINCOLN's 200th Birthday - List of Books/Novels

Two hundred years ago today (February 12, 1809), the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was born on Sinking Spring Farm, in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now part of LaRue County), making him the first president born outside the original thirteen colonies. I could write an essay about his life and achievements. Instead, I have made a small list of historical books and novels centered around his four years as President:


ABRAHAM LINCOLN's 200th Birthday - List of Books/Novels

Historical Books



"Two Roads to Sumter" (1963) by William and Bruce Catton - This book recounts the fifteen (15) years leading up to the U.S. Civil War, seen through the vantage points of the two leading politicians involved in the conflict: Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.




"Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution" (1990) by James M. McPherson - This book offers a series of thoughtful and engaging essays on aspects of Lincoln and the Civil War that have rarely been discussed in depth.




"Lincoln" (1996) by David Herbert Donald - This winner of the Lincoln Prize (awarded to awarded annually for the best non-fiction historical work of the year on the American Civil War since 1991) is a close biography of the 16th U.S. President.




"Team of Rivals: The Political Genuis of Abraham Lincoln" (2005) by Doris Kearns Goodwin - This is a biographical portrait of Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his Cabinet from 1861 to 1865 - Edward Bates (Attorney General), Salmon Chase (Treasury), and William H. Seward (State).



Novels



"Lincoln" (1984) by Gore Vidal - Part of the author's "Narratives of Empire" historical fiction series on American history, this novel centered on the four years of the Lincoln Administration during the U.S. Civil War. A 1988 miniseries starring Sam Waterson and Mary Tyler Moore was based upon it.




"Freedom: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War" (1987) by William Safire - This novel examines the careers of the principal Northern actors of the U.S. Civil War and how the Emancipation Proclamation came to be signed by Abraham Lincoln.