TOW #12- IRB Post "Lincoln" by David Herbert Donald

The IRB that I chose to read this marking period was the biography of Abraham Lincoln, written by David Herbert Donald.  I chose it mainly because I am interested in historical fiction, and had seen amazing reviews of the book.  To my surprise, the book has almost no focus on Lincoln's professional life, presidential life, or role in the Civil War, but has rather taken a closer look at his personality, friendships, child hood, and how he got into politics.  I has gone into this text thinking that the author would be preaching like a text book, but have found that Donald is much more interested in how and why Lincoln has made certain decisions in his life and how he got there.  It has painted Lincoln in a way that makes him seem more human, rather than the best American President who has a 19 foot tall statue in honor of him.  

Although Lincoln is pictured in a top hat and outfitted in a professional suit, he did not have an easy road to presidency.  In fact, Donald's purpose in the first half of this book is to prove to the audience that Lincoln was as human as the audience, and had to go through several failures to reach any sort of success.  To achieve this, Donald spent a solid portion of his text explaining that Lincoln did not even want to run for presidency.  Donald used imagery and a primary source that knew Lincoln personally and retold to the audience that when newspapers started showing their want for Lincoln to run for president, he responded by, "Just think,' he exclaimed, wrapping his long arms around his knees and giving a roar of laughter, 'of such a sucker as me as President." That was the same person that is referred to as the best American President of all time.  Even though Donald does not juxtapose between two written ideas, he completely goes against what the typical image of President Lincoln would be.  In today’s world, one has to be extremely confident (almost too confident) to run for President.  By showing how ridiculous Lincoln thought it was that he could be good enough for President, shows just how human he really was, a very contrasting idea from the popular god-like statue that all Americans know and love.