| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln. By Kenneth J. Winkle. (Dallas: Taylor, 2001. xii, 395 pp. $28.95, ISBN 0-87833-255-3.)
When first viewing this book's title, one might be tempted to dismiss it as another paean to Abraham Lincoln. Such a reaction would be a mistake. Rather than providing an homage to the Lincoln legend, Kenneth J. Winkle has opened a window into the past, offering fresh insights and new understandings into Lincoln's early life.	1
Lincoln biographers often stress the obstacles Lincoln had to overcome in his march to greatness. Recounting his humble origins, the death of his mother, the failings of his father, and the harshness of his life, many scholars describe Lincoln's circumstances as exceptional, making his rise to prominence all the more dramatic and profound. Winkle, a professor of history at the University of Nebraska, uses census data and other local history records to present a significantly different view. Utilizing local history methodologies, such as those successfully employed in John Mack Faragher's Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (1986), Winkle finds that the well-known events of Lincoln's early life not only were unexceptional, they were commonplace on the Illinois frontier.	. . .

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