Title: Lincoln's Melacholy is My Joy
Product review: Lincoln's Melancholy, by promising young scholar Joshua Wolf Shenk, brings a fresh, human perspective to the great Lincoln we all knew and loved, in a distant way, back in history classes of yore. Best about the book? It shows that depression, which we all go through to some extent or other, is not to be suppressed, or feared--but rather grappled with and, even, embraced. And so Mr. Shenk ably shows how Lincoln's well-documented but largely forgotten experiences with depression became the source of his great reservoirs of strength over the course of the War Between the States. His experiences with depression also became the source of his empathy, his humor, his ability to feel and experience life fully. And so Mr. Shenk's novel approach knocks other historical biographies out of the park--he goes way beyond, or beneath, dates and names and places...to what it's all about: our human experience.
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