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How Lincoln Learned To Read: Twelve Great Americans And The Educations That Made Them (2009)

by Daniel Wolff(Favorite Author)

3.46 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1596912901 (ISBN13: 9781596912908)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Bloomsbury USA

review 1: I keep reading this book every time I see it at the library. The writing is so-so, and a some of the material has pretty thin justifications. But it is fascinating to see how some of these great leaders educated themselves. It is also truly enlightening to see how they played off their education in order to appeal to the rank-and-file of Americans. I see dim echoes of Abraham Lincoln's off-color jokes and backwoods country boy appeal in George W. Bush's accent and attitude. That seems disingenuous, but that's what you have to do in order to appeal to Americans. Which is probably pointing out a major flaw in our culture. Anyway, the author has an axe to grind, but if you can get past that (and you should be able to) this is an interesting book.
review 2: Some of... more the chapters in this book were really interesting, particularly when they touched on the backgrounds of people I am not as familiar with. On the whole it sparked my interest to read more about certain people and it caused me to think about links and ideas about reforming education processes. However, I was bothered by the fact that while there were notes in the back, there were no footnotes to link to them in the main writing. I know it is written as popular history, but I think that's a bit insulting to assume that properly noted citations and notes would somehow turn people off. My main complaint is that there was basically no conclusion. These are 12 disparte people and the conclusion was all of two pages long and said essentially nothing. less

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