Lincoln
Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, History
David Herbert Donald's 1995 biography follows Abraham Lincoln from a Kentucky cabin in 1809 to the April night in 1865 when he was shot, telling the story largely from Lincoln's own point of view. Donald draws closely on Lincoln's letters and papers to show what he knew, and did not know, as he made each decision. The Lincoln who emerges is ambitious and shrewd, a politician who often let events ripen before acting, and who grew in office as the Civil War tested him.
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- Ryan Holiday: “So I went deeper. I read Hay and Nicolay... David S. Reynolds’s 1088-page Abe. David Herbert Donald’s 720-page Lincoln.”