| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Lincoln & Davis: Imagining America, 1809–1865. By Brian R. Dirck. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. xiv, 326 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-7006-1137-1.)

Nearly every study of the Civil War makes comparisons between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Sometimes these are carefully thought out and fully developed, as in Two Roads to Sumter (1963) by Bruce Catton and William Bruce Catton, but more often they are implicit in the narratives. Most of the comparisons favor Lincoln: he was pragmatic and flexible, while Davis was a military martinet; Lincoln was a superb politician, while Davis disliked the machinery of politics; Lincoln was a master of rhetoric, while Davis's speeches never stirred his people. 1

Without necessarily disagreeing with these judgments, Brian R. Dirck, of Anderson University, suggests that we rethink the roles played by these two leaders, concentrating on their ideas about American nationalism. His basic question is how Lincoln and Davis "imagined Americans themselves." "What were the psychological, social, cultural, and political factors that shaped their national imaginations?" he asks. "How much did they think they needed to know about what was in their fellow Americans' hearts in order to transact the nation's business?" . . .

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