Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Book Review: The Presidency Of Abraham Lincoln, By Phillip Shaw Paludan, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Americans have had a highly complex love-hate relationship with politics, especially with political ideology. Recent books on the state of American politics underscore the resentment Americans feel at governments that have grown bloated and indifferent. And the groundswell of complaints about congressional "gridlock" and budgetary "train wrecks" seems to show that Americans are particularly impatient with political ideologues who insist on letting their philosophies, economics, or values get in the way of consensus and problem solving. Yet tumbling out of every newspaper, radio, and television, now as never before in this generation, is evidence of Americans' possession by political polarizations …