About this item
Even two hundred years after Abraham Lincolns death, we, like Walt Whitman, love the President personally.In a stunning feat of scholarship, insight, and engaging prose, Lincolns Body explores how a president ungainly in body and downright ugly of aspect came to mean so much to us.The very roughness of Lincolns appearance made him seem all the more common, one of usas did his sense of humor about his own awkward physical nature. Nineteenth-century African Americans felt deep affection for their liberator as a homely man who did not hold himself apart. During Reconstruction, Southerners felt a nostalgia for the humility of Lincoln, whom they envisioned as a conciliator. Later, teachers glorified Lincoln as a symbol of nationhood that would appeal to poor immigrants.
About the Author
is a professor of history at the University of Southern California and the author of and , among other books. He lives in Venice, California.
