What’s striking about the new literature on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War is that, though one may expect Lincoln to be in some sense debunked or “deconstructed,” he remains a largely idealized figure, Adam Gopnik writes.

 

What’s striking about the new literature on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War is that, though one may expect Lincoln to be in some sense debunked or “deconstructed,” he remains a largely idealized figure, Adam Gopnik writes.

Was the Civil War Inevitable?

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.