Lincoln Books

This is an excellent book for NeoPagan parents who want to introduce to their kids some of the foundational concepts of Astrology. It includes both the science and the sacred myth along with spectacular art for each planet in our solar system. It also includes information about the Gods that the planets are named for. Each planet "speaks" biographically, in the first person, in such a way that is reminiscent of the language I've experienced in Wiccan ritual. (Such as "The Charge of the Goddess".) If you lean towards a Roman or Hellenic (Greek) pantheons, this book will be especially relevant to your practice of NeoPaganism. Again, the art is fantastic, with shiny metallic silver and golds mixed in with vibrant colors. The pictures here do not give it justice! I recommend this book for any NeoPagan bookstore's parenting and or children's section. In fact, that's where I bought my copy, at my local Witchy book store!

Kingdom Of The Sun: A Book Of The Planets a truly exciting picturebook that takes young readers on a cosmic tour through the solar system. Published by the National Geographic Society, Kingdom of the sun is filled with scientific facts about each planet as well as mythological lore about the gods after whom the planets are named. The color illustrations of the ancient gods and their planets against the backdrop of space are particularly striking, and the eye-catching use of shiny gold foil makes Kingdom Of The Sun a picturebook that compels admiration. The last two pages feature a short glossary and a table of facts about the sun, moon, and planets. Wonderfully written by Jacqueline Mitton and superbly illustrated by Christina Balit, Kingdom of the Sun is a truly beautiful gift book, superb for sparking an interest in science and astronomy in young people, and very highly recommended.

Arzani spins an entertaining metaphysical yarn that playfully addresses some of the deepest spiritual questions . . . and comes up with some surprising and enlightening answers. Be prepared to leave your limiting concepts and beliefs behind on this delightful journey."

Nirmala (author of Nothing Personal: Seeing Beyond the Illusion of a Separate Self and Living from the Heart

Reading "The Legacy of Violetta Rose", I was suprised to find that Arzani Burman's simple prose style opened many doors to important questions about why we're here and how we deal with the mystery of our lives. The multitude of choices we "think" we make on a daily basis are shown to us in several vignettes narrated by the author. I found this book to be both refreshing and poignant reading. I recommend this volume for both those curious about spiritual understanding and those who have tread the path of spiritual searching for many years. Enjoy the journey that leads to the glorious curtain call we know as enlightenment.

"A Letter for Mr. Lincoln" is a Cover-to-Cover Historical Moments chapter book and is a student edition of a reading program that's marketed to schools throughout the United States. This educational book contains a historical fiction story and nonfiction chapters that historically support the story. It includes illustrations and archival photographs and drawings. It also contains bolded vocabulary words with glossaries or vocabulary sidebars.Children are able to identify with the young, main character and learn about an important event in American history at the same time.
This educational chldren's book is both exciting and informative!

After returning from Ford's Theatre the night President Abraham Lincoln is shot, a young girl writes a letter to her hero. This book also contains information about the shooting of President Lincoln, Ford's Theatre today, and the Civil War.

Its a great book and worth the money.
I hope the writer does more books like this simple for kids to understand.

I really am pleased how it approaches its subject matter. Most children's books about international holidays are too technical and long to be used as a read aloud. This book can be useful and provide useful information. If a student wants more they can read a more complex book later. It also helps include an ESOL child's holiday in class, even young kids.

Ayres begins her preface, "The mark of a great man, it has been said, is that the more you know about him the more you like him"(p.ix). In this book, Ayres' scholarship and passion for Lincoln and his Kansas connection come to life. Through her use of primary sources, stories, and the historical and political context of the times, Ayres shares insights into the lives and beliefs of the people and situations that shaped the history of Kansas and this country. This exciting read will whet the appetite for further research and questioning of the scholar/teacher within each of us. I encourage you to peruse her work. It is an enjoyable read as you learn more about the history of Kansas, the man Lincoln, and the events and characters of the time. It is also an excellent resource for teaching this period of history in Kansas. Within these pages, Ayres succeeds in shedding more light on some of the characters who influenced the decisions and outcomes of "bloody Kansas" and the events before, during, and after the Civil War. It also brings to life several of the many artifacts and Kansas treasures housed in the Saint Mary College Lincoln Collection and other valuable resources around the area. This is a wonderful opportunity to get to know some of these historical characters in a more personal light. Great for summer or anytime reading!

This is one you probaly will want to eventually add to your collection. This work covers the vist Lincolne made to Kansas in 1859 and gives some grat background, often overlooked, as to the origines of the boarder wars, attitude of the participants and circumstances surrounding this bloody period. The author's text is smooth and the work is well researched. I of course collect books dealing with this era, but almost as importantly, I collect neat, little known details. This work is full of them. Recommend this one highly.

The "prime goal" of this marvelous book by Gabor Boritt, Professor of Civil War Studies and director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, "is the examination of [Lincoln's] economic persuasion, of how it broadly manifested itself in his political life, and how it affected American history." For many readers, a book about Lincoln's "economic persuasion" may seem pedantic, if not trivial, but Boritt demonstrates that Lincoln's economic views were central to his political philosophy. Had Lincoln not been an economic nationalist, he almost certainly never would have risen beyond being an unknown, provincial Illinois politician.

As Boritt explains in the preface, Lincoln's "connections with political economy" "may appear to be dreadfully dull to some," but the author cautions that "it is indispensable." Lincoln first came to prominence in rural Illinois in the 1830s as an advocate for "better transportation - `internal improvements,' as Americans called it." As a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, Lincoln "supported the creation of many, though not all, private, river, canal, turnpike, and railroad companies." At the end of the first chapter, Boritt writes that Lincoln's "political activity was inspired, beyond the hope of personal or party gain, by a vision of endless material progress," which became the "American dream."

Because Lincoln's origins were humble, he often is portrayed as a champion of the common man, but, as Boritt observes, for Lincoln, "banking was a special interest," and, in 1835, he supported a state bank because, according to Boritt, "the Illinois economy needed banking facilities above all to support internal improvements." By 1837, Lincoln was a member of the [Illinois] House Finance Committee, and, according to Boritt, he "made economics the most substantial part of his campaigning, legislative labors, and private studies outside (and not infrequently inside) his legal work." In an 1837 speech defending the state bank, Boritt writes that Lincoln "was giving voice to the prime element of his developing economic persuasion. The fact was that for the man who would rise, for the nations that would rise, banks were necessary." Boritt's assessment is: "Lincoln's involvement with improvements helped him reach convictions which played a crucial role during his presidency." According to Boritt, "the improvement episode helped make Lincoln a lifelong opponent of the localism and sectionalism that proved so destructive in Illinois."

In the mid-1840s, when Lincoln was hoping to be elected to Congress, his "Whiggery was mainly economic oriented," and his acceptance of broad party principles "meant national economic goals." According to Boritt: "Lincoln's thinking...exuded nationalism." In Washington, he "desired large scale federal improvements, federally directed, at federal expense." "But in Congress Lincoln began to shift his attention from specific questions of economics" as a result of the Mexican War, which Lincoln opposed. In Boritt's view: "Lincoln's lack of enthusiasm about expansion may have been shortsighted in economic terms," but, according to Boritt, Lincoln appears to have believed that "[e]conomic development demanded peace."

In the 1850s, according to Boritt, as Lincoln was "pulled...toward Republicanism," he continued to believe "the economics of prosperity, freedom, and this democracy." In several places, Boritt observes that Lincoln believed in the inevitability of material progress. In contrast: "Slavery was a relic of barbarism." In 1856, according to Boritt, Lincoln noted that the "`central idea' of America was equality." To Lincoln, in Boritt's view, "equality" meant "opportunity to get ahead in life." Boritt explains: "Since the central idea of America was economic, the measure of the nation's success had to be economic, too." In this respect, according to Boritt, Lincoln "institutionalized the American Dream - made it perhaps the most central idea of the nation," and slavery had to be extinguished because it "subverted the Dream." According to Boritt: "Lincoln could perceive America only through nationalist eyes....As Lincoln saw it, the nation was to become either free or slave, one or the other."

During the 1850s, according to Boritt, Lincoln became increasingly absorbed with the slavery issue. Once elected president, according to Boritt, "Lincoln's eyes remained set on one foremost goal: stopping slavery extension in the name of the American Dream." According to Boritt: "Lincoln defended the Union on many occasions and in almost as many ways, but by far his most extensive and determined defense was a largely economic defense." In his annual message in 1862, according to Boritt, Lincoln declared that the "United States could not be broken up...because it formed am indivisible economic unit." In Boritt's view, "Lincoln's first important military act was essentially economic: the proclamation of a blockade of Southern ports....The adaption of economic policy to military strategy, thus began a few days after the fall of Fort Sumter, continued to Appomattox." According to Boritt: "Emancipation by itself ran counter to the President's policy of enticing Southerners back into the Union through economic means." Boritt writes: "Lincoln appreciated the need for an economic base for the former slaves." The employment of former slaves liberated by the circumstances of war, Boritt explains, "transformed the slave into a wage-earning free laborer." Nevertheless, in Boritt's view, Lincoln "failed to come to grips fully with the needs of the masses of blacks." In the final chapter, Boritt writes: "For Lincoln, unobstructed upward mobility was the most important ideal America strove for....Mobility was the ideal and slavery its antipode." For Lincoln, in Boritt's view, "the most `central idea' of the Union war effort was the preservation of man's right to rise.'"

What, ultimately, is the connection between Lincoln's economic and political philosophy? I believe Boritt would say that Lincoln's economic nationalism made him a lifelong opponent of the localism and sectionalism, as well as a strong believer in economic opportunity. In one of this book's key passages, Boritt writes that "slavery was the supreme issue for [Lincoln] because he feared its extension would strangle the American Dream." After reading this book, no reader will doubt that, throughout his public career, Lincoln was a man ahead of his time.

I've read many titles on Lincoln and have come to know the man, his words and his deeds. But now I can say that I understand him. American revisionists have lately found it fashionable and all too easy to knock down our heroes and charge them with crimes from the perspective of the Twentieth Century. Yet, Boritt's insights are a wonderful celebration of a true American hero. And better yet, Boritt makes no apologies for it. Perhaps we needed to wait for this foreign born author to remind us what has been really important about the USA all along. Wrap yourself in the red, white and blue and feel patriotic again. Oh, and by the way, don't let the title scare you. The book is quite an easy read.

There are two books with almost identical titles and cover art. There is "Lincoln at Cooper Union" with the subtitle "The Speech that made Abraham Lincon President," by Harold Holzer and there is this book written a few months earlier by John A. Corry. I earlier reviewed the Holzer book and gave it five stars and this book is also exellent and deserves five stars. The speech was originally to be delivered at Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Lincoln had been invited to give a lecture there and after negotiations as to the the date of the speech, February 27, 1860 was agreed upon. For a number of logistical reasons, the sponsor of the speech was changed and it was relocated to Cooper Institute in Manhattan as part of a lecture series. In all of the correspondance between Lincoln and the sponsors, somehow Lincoln was never informed of the venue change and was quite surprised when he arrived in New York.

The speech was divided into three parts, (1)a lawyerly dissertation on the intent of the "fathers", to wit, the signers of the constitution, as to whether slavery could be banned in the territories, (2) an appeal to a hypothetical southern audience, and (3) a rallying cry to the Republican faithful. The speech includes the memorable phrase, at the conclusion, "let us have faith that right makes might." Sadly, the Civil War followed with both sides acting in the opposite manner, that "might makes right."

The speech was a huge success as it gave Lincoln a national prominence. He took variations of the speech on the road to New England where over the next two weeks, he spoke nine times. The speech was reprinted and indeed, in the appendix there is a reproduction of an annotated copy of the speech that was distributed (Holzer's book also reproduces the annotated speech). The wide distribution of the speech was instrumental in increasing Lincoln's national stature. The cover photograph was taken by Matthew Brady the day the speech was to be delivered and Brady did such a masterful job of making the ungainly Lincoln look distinguished that the photo, as much as the speech, may have helped propel Lincoln to the presidency.

The books are similar although, of course, there are differences. Corry relies on direct quotations more than does Holzer so Holzer's narrative flows a little more. Corry gives more background on the issue of slavery as it evolved in the decades leading up to the speech. Holzer, on the other hand, spends a little more time on the negotiations for Lincoln to deliver the speech and on Lincoln's preparations. As to the issue of preparation, Corry includes a great insight: that Lincoln was very intelligent but had a specific type of intelligence, an intelligence which had a capcity for extensive research and preparation. I agree with this insight. Although Lincoln is famous for humorous quips, his great speeches were all thoroughly prepared. If you read a history of the immediate aftermath of Appomattox, you will note that Lincoln was called upon to deliver an impromtu speech from the White House. At that moment of Lincoln's greatest triumph, he delievered a somewhat rambling, pedestrian speech that did little to inspire. However, the Cooper Union speech, Gettysburg Address, and second inaugeral speech, all meticulously prepared, are speeches for the ages.

Both this book and Holzer's effort are superb and I recommend both. If you are to read only one, you would not go wrong by reading either of the two.

This is a great companion to Holzer's work on the same topic. The authors approach this Lincoln speech from somewhat different angles. Together, though, you have a three-dimensional view of a watershed event in American history.

My son (7) loved collecting the state quarters so now we're expanding into collecting other coins. This Penny folder was the perfect next step! He also got Dime and Nickel books from his uncle and he and his father sit around with his piggy bank going through the change to fill these books up! And they are so inexpensive, we will be getting more.

holds the coins in nice and snug. kids love this. best advise get a magnifying glass to read the coinsand mint marks

Being a Lincoln fan, I pride myself on keeping up on the latest books that come out, and usually, one way or another, end up purchasing them. So, imagine my surprise when I visited a local bookstore, and was browsing in its impressive Lincoln section to find this jew, "The Lincoln Family Album". What, a book that I hadn't heard of?

At first, I thought it was just a simple recounting of the many familiar books with Lincoln photos in it. But upon glancing inside, I realized how wrong assumptions are. The pictures in this book are from the actual Lincoln photograph album, kept through the family generation after generation, until the last surviving member of the clan died in 1985. Up until then, the book lived in secrecy, but now, in this stunning paperback, the photographs have been reproduced. Each page contains a picture, and a small vignette that describes the person in the picture, and why it would be found in the Lincoln family album.

I found myself engrossed, not only in the pictures, but the information contained in each page. For some reason, the pictures came more alive to me with this information than any other picture book of Lincoln. Especially touching are the pictures of Lincoln's kids, Tad, Willie, and Robert. As proud parents would, they are well-documented in this book.

If you are a devotee of Lincoln, I highly recommend this book. With an engrossing first chapter that talks about how photography was catching on just as Lincoln became President, and a wealth of knowledge of the Lincoln family, this book is sure to please you!!

Mark Neely has compiled a fascinating collection of the Lincoln family's pictures from their family album. What's interesting is what is NOT included in the album: not many photographs of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the most photographed president of the 19th century. But the pictures of his children and grandchildren are especially interesting and poignant, especially those of a grandson named Abraham (Robert's son) who died at 16 but who bore an uncanny likeness to his famous grandfather. An important addition to any serious Lincoln student's library.

The Lincoln Highway across Pennsylvania has something for almost every visitor. Brian Butko has seen, and describes, it all.

The Lincoln enters Pennsylvania from Trenton, NJ across a fragile 19th-century bridge, then approaches Philadelphia on historic Roosevelt Boulevard. From Philadelphia to Lancaster it follows the 18th-century Lancaster Pike, whose mileposts still sit almost unnoticed on the shoulder. Robert E. Lee's troops marched along the Lincoln en route to the Battle of Gettysburg.

From Chambersburg to Ligonier (with the glaring exception of Breezewood), the Lincoln is a driver's road: two lanes, winding up and down hills and through small towns in which time stopped a half-century ago. Many views from 75-year-old postcards still look the same today. Further west, the route traverses some of Pittsburgh's oldest suburbs, then promenades through downtown Pittsburgh en route to nicking the West Virginia panhandle at Chester.

This second, revised and updated edition of Brian Butko's guide masterfully recounts the history of the Lincoln Highway across Pennsylvania. Those driving the road will learn the history of every significant site they pass...as well as those, like Bill's Place and the Ship Hotel, which no longer remain.

I-80 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike are two of the dullest drives in the eastern United States. Take a little extra time and follow the Lincoln Highway instead -- and do it with this readable but comprehensive guide.

I greatly enjoyed the first edition of this book. The first edition seems to have piqued interest in the Lincoln in Pennsylvania. The second edition includes many more vintage pictures of scenes from the Lincoln and interviews from people connected with the highway. If you've ever driven a section of the Lincoln, Brian's writing will have you visualizing the journey in your minds eye. The new information and pictures made a second edition not only necessary but also welcome!