| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. By David R. Contosta. (Amherst: Prometheus, 2008. 365 pp. $26.95, ISBN 978-1-59102-610-5.)

We have here an unusual volume. The author narrates in alternating but carefully integrated sections the parallel lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, who were born on the same date in 1809. While not neglecting differences, David R. Contosta points out similarities in the personalities of the two men. Most important, each had a patient intelligence of a high order, a driving ambition, and a large streak of melancholy. The author is also concerned to depict the communal order in which the "giants" lived. While they occupied dramatically different social spaces, both existed in a culture ready for their efforts, one in politics and one in science. Finally, Contosta examines at length the changing reputation of each man, mainly in American debate, memory, and history, since the end of the Civil War.

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