The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas Dilorenzo
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  301 reviews
Sales Rank: 18579
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0761526463
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.7092
EAN: 9780761526469
ASIN: 0761526463
Publication Date: December 2, 2003
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Product Description
A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend.
Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provacative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our republic to this very day.
You will discover a side of Lincoln that you were probably never taught in school—a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody, and perhaps, unnecessary war.
"A devastating critique of America's most famous president."
—Joseph Sobran, commentator and nationally syndicated columnist
"Today's federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Thomas J. DiLorenzo gives an account of How this come about in The Real Lincoln."
—Walter E. Williams, from the foreword
"A peacefully negotiated secession was the best way to handle all the problems facing Americans in 1860. A war of coercion was Lincoln's creation. It sometimes takes a century or more to bring an important historical event into perspective. This study does just that and leaves the reader asking, 'Why didn't we know this before?'"
—Donald Livingston, professor of philosophy, Emory University
"Professor DiLorenzo has penetrated to the very heart and core of American history with a laser beam of fact and analysis."
—Clyde Wilson, professor of history, University of South Carolina, and editor, The John C. Calhoun Papers
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 296 more reviews...
 The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo November 10, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is with out a doubt the best expose' of this dreadful man.
He has been lionized to the point of almost worship by Lincoln lovers based mostly on false propaganda since the War of Northern Aggression.
Probably one of the few times a man responsible for the deaths of over a half million citizens of his own country has been so treated.
He totally changed the United States form a nation guided by the constitution to one dominated by a hugh central government. He is credited with freeing the slaves. He didn't free one slave and cared more for his own agenda than for any enslaved person.
This book was long over due.
Dale Roberts author of Tales of Travis Hawkins McCleod.
 to call this "history" is egregiously fallacious November 2, 2008
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
Historiographically this work is, at best, claptrap. Work of this quality would fail even an introductory course in history at any reputable university.
It can be described most kindly as a badly researched polemic. Its aspiration to be considered scholarly is daft egoism.
Debunking the myth of Honest Abe October 24, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
In this book, Thomas Dilorenzo digs into the myths surrounding Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln believed in the ideas of Henry Clay, who championed "the American System", which promoted big government and internal improvement project financed by the taxpayers. The book contends that Lincoln invaded a sovereign nation (The Confederate States of America) without the authorization of Congress, not to make slavery illegal but to punish the South for its constitutional right to secede from the Union.
If even a quarter of what Dilorenzo describes in regards to Lincoln is truth not fiction, it is absolutely outrageous to think that Lincoln is martyred. I felt the book to be compelling, and I believe it should be read by everyone who believes Lincoln to be a saint. The man we have been described in our history classes is nothing more than a myth.
Help spread the word in time for the Lincoln bicentennial September 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Prof Dilorenzo does a great service with this important book, offering welcome relief from what Edmund Wilson called the "romantic and sentimental rubbish" of the Lincoln idolaters. The veil of myth is lifted and underneath we see the father of the centralized leviathan, hypocritically hiding behind emancipation as an excuse to destroy the republic of the Founders.
I highly recommend you purchase multiple copies and distribute them to friends and family in time for the Lincoln bicentennial in February 2009.
 Fine work on Important subject August 27, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The wonder is that more of this type of scholarship didn't surface a century ago. History being written by the victors, it isn't really surprising that it didn't appear sooner than that, but for the myth to be so prevalent, so unchallengeable, for so long, is a distressing mystery. Recently I read Eric Larson's Devil in the White City, a great book, and noted that a common reaction to much of the historical detail in it is, "why didn't I know this." That is the reaction here, but an order of magnitude greater and in a more important subject area. The surprise in this book is how much help it is in understanding today's political landscape. DiLorenzo doesn't just go back to the founding fathers, he goes back to Mercantilism and Adam Smith, and ties it all together. Required reading.
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