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A Cultural History
by Richard Wightman Fox
In a stunning feat of scholarship, insight, and engaging prose, Lincoln's Body explores how a president ungainly in body and downright "ugly" of aspect came to mean so much to us.
The very roughness of Lincoln's appearance made him seem all the more common, one of us - as 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. Monument makers focused not only on the man's gigantic body but also on his nationalist efforts to save the Union, downplaying his emancipation of the slaves.
Among both black and white liberals in the 1960s and 1970s, Lincoln was derided or fell out of fashion. More recently, Lincoln has once again been embodied (as both idealist and pragmatist, unafraid of conflict and transcending it) by outstanding historians, by self-identified Lincolnian president Barack Obama, and by actor Daniel Day-Lewis - all keeping Lincoln alive in a body of memory that speaks volumes about our nation.
35 illustrations
"Starred Review. An original, brightly written and well-researched cultural history certain to have wide appeal." - Kirkus
"Historian Fox... has struck gold with this unusual, finely crafted study." - Publishers Weekly
"Any student of Lincoln will find this a compelling read that enhances scholarship on the president." - Library Journal
"One of our foremost cultural historians, Richard Wightman Fox, has added a new dimension to our understanding of Lincoln's place in American culture." - Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
"In death, Abraham Lincoln, who never joined a church, proceeded from martyrdom to culthood to sainthood. In Lincoln's Body the eminent culture historian Richard Wightman Fox offers a dazzling interpretation of how it all happened, filled with fresh ideas about our greatest president's legacy." - Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
"In his sweeping discussion of Lincoln's physical body (how people viewed it during his lifetime or interpreted it after his death), Richard Wightman Fox deftly traces the high-stakes cultural battle - waged in poetry, prose, art, and film - over the meaning of Lincoln, man and myth, from his day to our own." - Brenda Wineapple, author of Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877
"Richard Wightman Fox has ingeniously portrayed the physical body of Abraham Lincoln, living and dead, in his own time and in memory, as a vehicle for evaluating Lincoln's continuing impact on American culture." - James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
"With subtle analysis and supple writing, preeminent cultural historian Richard Wightman Fox is especially insightful on the African-American experiences of Lincoln. Readers will sense from the first page that this is a book they will want to linger over in their delight." - Ronald C. White Jr., author of A. Lincoln: A Biography
This information about Lincoln's Body was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Richard Wightman Fox is a professor of history at the University of Southern California and the author of Jesus in America and Trials of Intimacy, among other books. He lives in Venice, California.
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