Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

This is not a biography but a thorough and informative synthesis of much material on Lincoln's work as president. Paludan ( A People's Contest ), who teaches history at the University of Kansas, proceeds chronologically, describing, for example, how Lincoln assembled his cabinet to reflect his party's diverse elements, how he crafted his first inaugural and how Congress prepared for war by authorizing the printing of federal money in the era of state banknotes. Besides such details, Paludan also enters into historical debate: he argues that Lincoln's hands-off attitude toward administrative details strengthened him for ``larger matters of grand strategy''; that his 1862 support for blacks to emigrate and form their own colony helped reduce resistance to inevitable emancipation; that his pre-Emancipation Proclamation proposal that states have 37 years to free their slaves showed commitment to ``an orderly, gradual process of change.'' There is much to chew on in this book, as Paludan demonstrates that Lincoln's mastery of the ``political-constitutional institutions of his time'' served the country well. (May)