Lincoln Books

This is one of my all-time favorite books! It is about Amy, a 6th grade girl who is pushed into being a member of the "Save the Earth Club" by her best friend Lindsay. Amy is very shy, and she refuses to do some of the things Lindsay wants her to. This causes a rift in their friendship, but eventually they put their differences aside. This book will really make you want to get out there and help save the earth. It isn't preachy, though, because of the way it succeeds in putting humor in throughout the book. Amy's way of facing her fears and helping the earth will inspire you. I give it two thumbs up!

Tajinder Deoora is a remarkable healer, osteopathic practitioner, naturopath and teacher. Her book reflects all these diverse aspects of her being. It is readable, clear, highly informative and offers a balanced, insightful and inspiring insight in to cranial osteopathy - it is a highly intelligent exploration of cranial osteopathy and its roots. Cranial osteopathy is a discipline at the cutting edge of its own profession (osteopathy) so the reader can imagine what it is in the eyes of some of the more conventional healing modalities. Tajinder Deoora has taken this on, never losing sight of the rational, common sense of structure and function but at the same time having the courage, integrity and sensitivity to take the reader into the more subtle and challenging aspects of healing through this modality in a highly credible and professional manner. It should be required reading for all serious students of the healing arts including orthodox medicine.

The maturation of the American society was a complex and idealistic endeavor that was accentuated by many different transitional phases. Hell Gate of the Mississippi marks one of these major transitions that occurred during the growth, which was emphasized by its' `Manifest Destiny'. The transition that the author, Larry A. Riney, transcribes in this journey presents nineteenth century America, and the great characters in these events utilized it as a major point of experience in their lives.
Hell Gate of the Mississippi presents a dichotomy that existed throughout history, the struggle between progress and the established norm. In this instance the established norm, the steamboat trade, and the desire to establish a progressive national railroad. The establishment of the national railroad meant that steamboats became more of an archaic endeavor. The railroads are presented to Americans as the cheaper, faster mode of transit for their businesses and social uses. However, even when the railroads were presented as an obstruction to the already established steamboat companies, the power of the purse prevailed. The railroads used the courts as their pulpit, presenting the American people with a high powered legal team, and the growth of the rail towns to accentuate a puppet courtroom. The legal team used savvy and their prestige, presenting individuals such of Abraham Lincoln, to push their case over the top, leaving the steam boaters cause with little more than a hope and a prayer.
The author presents to the reader a technical view on the maritime precedents that were established during this trial. This was a scholarly written piece of non-fiction that established most of what it sought out to accomplish. The most important presentation was to ascertain that the influential players involved in this event were not entirely essential to the outcome of the trial.

William Klotz

When I sent copies of this book to members of my family and some friends, their reactions were all the same: "It sure is big!" That's true. Henry Halleck's War is more than 700 pages long; it uses roughly 250,000 words; its 20 chapters contain close to 1,800 source citations -- what we used to call footnotes; and it weighs three pounds, six and a half ounces. Why is it so big? A great many pages are devoted to messages, letters, and reports General Halleck wrote during the war. They show that his contributions to the Union's successful war effort were both numerous and valuable -- and that critics such as Gideon Welles were wrong. It was Welles who said, "Halleck originates nothing, anticipates nothing, takes no responsibility, plans nothing, suggests nothing, is good for nothing." Hardly anyone ever said anything good about Halleck during his lifetime. His friend Cump Sherman urged him to defend himself, to fight back. General Halleck refused. He was willing to be judged by what was in the records. In them, he told Cump, some future historian would find the truth about him and what he did. But during the past hundred years, too few scholars have bothered to go through the 128 thick volumes of the Official Records, flip through crumbling pages until they found the documents that involved General Halleck, and study them. As a result, just about everyone has agreed with Welles that Henry Halleck was a disaster. However, recently Guild Press of Indiana put the entire wall of books called the Official Records on a single wafer-thin CD-ROM. That made it possible for me to do what General Halleck trusted someone would do -- study his record. But I've gone beyond that. The messages, letters, and reports included in this book enable readers to judge Halleck for themselves -- which, I think, is what he hoped would happen. In the course of selecting all these materials and providing enough narrative to place them in historical context, several things surprised me. First, the requirements of the job of general-in-chief were very different from what Halleck's critics assumed. No one knew what a general-in-chief was supposed to do. No valid precedent or standards for judging his performance existed. Even so, ignorance didn't stop anyone from declaring General-in-Chief Halleck a failure. Second, his relationship to Abraham Lincoln had a special aspect that has been completely overlooked. Both men were lawyers: Lincoln in central Illinois, Old Brains out in San Francisco -- indeed, he was the respected senior partner of California's leading law firm. Accordingly, Halleck's performance ought to be judged as that of a special counsel retained to help Lincoln prosecute Union versus Confederacy -- a case that was being tried on battlefields from eastern Virginia to New Mexico. In everything General Halleck wrote you will find precision of thought and expression reflecting his expertise both in military art and in the ability to reduce complex questions to basic principles -- and then to apply them. These were skills that Lincoln needed desperately. Some observers have hailed him as a military genius -- but if you read closely some of the documents he signed, you will see how dependent he actually was on special counsel Halleck. Third, this book also contains messages and letters to Halleck from Don Carlos Buell, George McClellan, William Rosecrans, Cump Sherman, Ulysses Grant, and many other generals. I was surprised by how much they revealed about themselves in what they wrote Halleck. I had never known enough about General Buell, for example, to have an opinion about him. But from the messages he sent Old Brains, I learned why he was such a disappointment. Same regarding McClellan -- the "Young Napoleon." If you doubt that he was a spoiled brat, just read his messages to his wife and to General Halleck. My fourth surprise was that I could compress the quarter of a million words in this book into a single simple sentence: General Halleck didn't win the war, but clearly he kept Abraham Lincoln from losing it. Lincoln was completely unprepared to be Commander- in-Chief, and initially he made some dreadful mistakes. That stopped in mid-1862 when he sent a peremptory order to Halleck to come to Washington. Halleck saved the Union capital by moving McClellan's Army of the Potomac northward to help John Pope. He saved Grant when Lincoln secretly gave command of the Vicksburg operation to a political general already notorious for incompetence. But Halleck couldn't always save Lincoln from blundering. Behind Halleck's back, Lincoln gave command of the Army of the Potomac to "Fighting Joe" Hooker -- with General Lee's brilliant victory at Chancellorsville as a humiliating result. Ordinarily, however, Old Brains and the President reached a meeting of the minds. Both men, being lawyers, placed great weight on principles. Halleck was driven by a high sense of duty and of honor and of love of country. But he was also an expert on the principles of military art, and he enforced them. He told Lincoln and later Grant, You cannot, you dare not try to control a battle from a desk hundreds or thousands of miles from the killing site. "I hold," Old Brains declared, "that a general in command of an army in the field is the best judge of existing conditions."

That was the Halleck Doctrine. It was turned on its head recently during military operations in the Balkans directed from the White House. Reputations, Professor Walter McDougall has written, are the only things over which historians have control. Historians destroyed Henry Halleck's reputation. It's time to give some of his good name back to him.

This book is wonderfully informative. It gives the correct herbs to grow for your particular part of the country. The pictures and descriptions of plantings are also excellent.

An excellent picture book that shows some of the main elements of a West African wedding.

"few historical studies are so readable and entertaining" - Roy Basler
"Beginning with a colorful, lucid and anecdotal history of the capital and reciting the important events in its growth, Angle lets Lincoln enter at the proper time, fade out and reappear as the facts dictate, and take his proportioned place in the life of the town. The title come from the farewell speech Lincoln made the raininy morning of Feb. 11, 1861, when he said to his neighbors from the rear platform of the train: 'Here I havelived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young to an old man ... I now leave not knowing when or whether I may return...' He never did." - Lloyd Lewis

Historians have been frustrated by flaws in Hertz's collection of materials produced by Lincoln's law partner Herndon, but this volume remains a handy source for firsthand items not easily accessible anywhere else.

This mid to upper elementary book may be particularly interesting to immigrants from Mexico. During current immigration discussion, one sometimes hears about the western lands having belonged to Mexico. This book will help students to understand that period of US history. The beautiful artwork and maps illustrate the text.

In An Honest Calling attorney Mark E. Steiner makes good use of his professional training and years spent in helping to compile Lincoln's legal papers.

Study of Lincoln's law career has long been hampered by the scattered nature of Lincoln's court documents throughout Illinois and the Midwest. Now they are gathered together, and Steiner has made a fine presentation of what they reveal about Lincoln's "day job," which may have consumed as much of his time as politics did. Steiner deals with Lincoln's law practice in general and with some individual cases revealing Lincoln's handling of particular issues (including slavery and railroad corporations). Civil and criminal practices are covered.

This is an excellent introduction to Lincoln's law practice, and will also interest persons seeking information about the influence of attorneys on the Western frontier.