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Title: Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness
ISBN: 1598870041
Author:
Joshua Wolf Shenk
Publicate Date: 2005-09-22
Publish: 2005-09-22
List Price: $36.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Audio CD
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $21.07
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $19.95
Amazon Merchant Price: $24.39
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Something is Missing
This is a great story about an aspect of Lincoln's life that is rarely discussed, but something was missing. It read like the author was under contract to crank out a book about Lincoln's depression, and he put off writing it until three month before his deadline. I expected a lot more, but it was still worth reading.
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2: Great Biography From a Diiferent Standpoint
Advancements in our modern world have greatly enhanced and extended the lives of people. We have electronic connections with the world to soothe loneliness and drugs to reset our brains when the burden seems too much. But there is a trade off that comes with not confronting our immediate environment and the emotions it stirs within. We loose depth of thought and true understanding. But if we are perceived as being lost in thought and don't daily possess the requisite chipperness demanded in American society today, a doctor will write us a prescription that will cheer us right up.
Abraham Lincoln did not have such a buoyant support system in his day. He suffered and later learned to harness the effects of a life long battle with depression.
Joshua Shenk explores this side of our sixteenth president in his book Lincoln's Melancholy. Published in 2005 Shenk spent seven years accumulating data, plying through original source material, and visiting all sites associated with Abraham Lincoln. The book which resulted gives a concise and vivid picture of Lincoln and how harnessed the energy of the greatest challenge in his life to ultimately lead the United States through the greatest challenge of its life.
After a brief introduction the book follows Lincoln from birth up through the last day of his life. Shenk peppers the book with plenty of first hand accounts, especially from Lincoln's close friend Joshua Speed and his law partner William Herndon. In one telling account Herndon speaks of often walking into the law office to find Lincoln splayed across a chair staring out the window or holding his face in his hands. Lincoln speaks to us directly as well in words he wrote to his friends: "I am now the most miserable man living" (referring to his intention to break up with Mary Todd). At the time Lincoln wrote these words he was a young lawyer who wrote and published maudlin poetry in his spare time.
Another telling anecdote from the Civil War years comes from Attorney General Edward Bates who writes, "The Prest. was in deep distress...he seemed wrung by the bitterest anguish - said he felt almost ready to hang himself."
In another great anecdote which demonstrates Lincoln's great restraint, the president sits down and writes a seething letter to General George Meade for his failure to pursue and crush General Robert E. Lee's army at Gettysburg. But after writing the letter Lincoln folded it and slipped it into an envelope marked "never sent". This incident is especially relevant in this day when hot heads fire off angry emails which serve only to point fingers rather than solve problems.
Through these anecdotes and the documented events of Lincoln's life Shenk shows the reader how Lincoln gained an insight referred to as depressive realism. He cites studies that show people with depression see the world more as it is and can therefore make better decisions than people who are blinded by unfounded optimism.
Lincoln's Melancholy is not a book that everyone will enjoy but, as Lincoln once said, "If you like this sort of book this is the sort of book you'll like." I've read a number of comprehensive biographies, including David Herbert Donald's tome Lincoln. I now find books that focus on one aspect of a person's life to be more entertaining and readable as long as they give sufficient background information to help the reader connect the unique aspect which is the focus to the broader picture of the subject's life and times.
Lincoln's Melancholy is the classic story of one person overcoming poverty and a clinical disability which would have quashed the ambitions of a lesser man. Instead Abraham Lincoln felt he had been bestowed with a gift that allowed him to see what other people could not. His speeches and correspondence often looked to the future, acknowledging the ideas would not be fully embraced at the time Lincoln presented them. In such people we can find our greatest inspiration.
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3: Compassionate, thought-provoking, inspiring
Beautifully and compassionately written, the depiction of how Lincoln found meaning in his life not by overcoming his depression (pre Prozac, you know), but rather living through it, was truly inspiring. Highly recommended.
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4: This story is an inspiration
Anyone who suffers from depression should read this story. Lincoln was a man who learned how to overcome this illness to achieve great things for God and for himself. A very inspirational read.
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5: Lincoln: Temperament and Triumph
"Lincoln's Melancholy," by Joshua Wolf Shenk, is a superb account of how the lifelong depression suffered by Lincoln was overcome by his own strength of character and led to his greatness. Initially an obstacle, Lincoln triumphed over the melancholy he probably inherited from his family by focusing on a larger goal, stopping the spread of slavery into the new, western territories and finally, preserving the Union itself.
Lincoln suffered two major depressive incidents in his youth, the first after the death of Ann Rutledge, and the second when his engagement to Mary Todd was broken. His indecisiveness led to a mental breakdown which was only alleviated when he finally married her. After these incidents, Lincoln settled into a state of chronic depression, which nonetheless did not interfere with his likeability and gregarious nature. Lincoln used humor, storytelling, and reading and writing poetry to cope with his bouts of sadness.
Shenk gives an account of earlier biographies of Lincoln, which were sometimes off the mark. Early in the 20th century, when Freud was the rage, it was speculated that Lincoln's sorrow was due to an Oedipus complex and guilt over his mother's death. Later writers insisted that he could not have been in love with Ann Rutledge because they distrusted the source of that rumor, William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner. It is now believed that the eyewitnesses Herndon interviewed may have been correct.
The book was written in a compelling, easy-going style complete with poetic references. I especially loved the preface wherein Leo Tolstoy tried to explain Lincoln to a group of local tribesmen in the Caucasus. It is such a beautiful, concisely written biography that I have been inspired to use it as the basis of a speech on Lincoln that I will deliver on the occasion of his bicentennial in February.
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