Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106596 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Abe the Emancipator, argues Washington Monthly contributor Shenk, struggled with persistent clinical depression. The first major bout came in his 20s, and the disease dogged him for the rest of his life. That Lincoln suffered from "melancholy" isn't new. Shenk's innovation is in saying, first, that this knowledge can be illuminated by today's understanding of depression and, second, that our understanding of depression can be illuminated by the knowledge that depression was actually a source of Lincoln's greatness. Lincoln's strategies for dealing with it are worth noting today: at least once, he took a popular pill known as the "blue mass"—essentially mercury—and also once purchased cocaine. Further, Lincoln's famed sense of humor, suggests Shenk, may have been compensatory, and he also took refuge in poetry. Unlike Americans today, Shenk notes, 19th-century voters and pundits were more forgiving of psychological and emotional complexity, and a certain prophetic pessimism, he notes, was appropriate to the era of the Civil War. Occasionally, Shenk chases down an odd rabbit trail—an opening meditation on whether Lincoln was gay, for example, is neither conclusive nor apposite. Still, this is sensitive history, with important implications for the present. (Sept. 20)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–In 1835, Lincoln, a likable, gifted law student, was so depressed that his community, who accepted his mental state as a component of his brilliance, put him on a suicide watch. The reaction to his depressions by those who knew him, and by Lincoln himself, is a revelation of 19th-century thinking. In his day, melancholia was seen as a personality type that, along with disadvantages, had attributes such as deep self-reflection. Blessed with insight into his condition, Lincoln used it as a resource, providing self-therapy in an era when professional therapies were scant. The man also was blessed with a sense of humor and, above all, good friendships that alleviated major life traumas, including the loss of two children. This is not a full biography. Emphasis is placed on aspects of Lincolns life that contributed to his mental burdens, such as his estrangement from his father. The value of this book is the authors ability to assess his subjects mental state based on eyewitness accounts and Lincolns own words. Shenk assumes his readers have a grasp of the periods history, making the book challenging, but teens interested in Lincoln or psychology will find the content compelling.–Jo Ann Soriano, Lorton Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
President Buchanan is reported to have said to President-elect Lincoln as they rode down Pennsylvania Avenue on the latter's Inauguration Day: "My dear sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland [Buchanan's Pennsylvania home], you are a happy man indeed." But Abraham Lincoln did not expect to attain "happiness" in the White House or, as this intellectually energetic book shows, anywhere else. Lincoln's Melancholy sounds again the half-forgotten, minor-key background music of his life. Joshua Wolf Shenk rejects the notion that Lincoln got over his melancholy under the demands of the presidency; his Lincoln is never too busy to be gloomy. And, drawing on modern studies of depression, Shenk even has a reference -- humorous, I think -- to "happiness" as a mental disorder.

In 1998, Shenk (a young essayist who frankly mentions his own battles with depression) read a reference to Lincoln's melancholy in an essay on suicide and set about learning more. In his researcher's zeal, he read Lincoln scholars and also sought them out and interviewed them; he went to Lincoln's birthplace and Ford's Theater, stood where Lincoln delivered the "house divided" speech, held in his hand Lincoln's letters to his friend Joshua Speed, saw the fatal assassin's bullet and, since heredity is one ingredient inclining a person to depression, obtained the records admitting Mary Jane Lincoln, Lincoln's father's cousin, to the Illinois Hospital for the Insane in 1867. He even attended a convention of Lincoln impersonators, borrowed a Lincoln suit for himself and joined in. His book has page after page of acknowledgments, to the point that one may be tempted to say: No wonder a writer with this many friends could produce such a strong book.

"The goal," Shenk writes, "has been to see what we can learn about Lincoln by looking at him through the lens of his melancholy, and to see what we can learn about melancholy by looking at it in light of Lincoln's experience." He has effectively cast light in both directions.

Lincoln's sorrowful moods were no secret; contemporaries said things such as, "His melancholy dripped from him as he walked." But that theme was shoved aside by professional historians in the middle of the 20th century, especially by the towering James G. Randall and his wife, Ruth, who led a generation of scholars to produce ungloomy Lincolns. More recent research, restoring oral testimony taken from Lincoln's own time, has brought back into view two "major depressive episodes" in Lincoln's life, as well as providing a cloud of witnesses to his melancholy disposition.

His family history and his youthful experience planted the seed; his mother, said to be intelligent and sad, died when he was 9; he endured other deaths and a distant relationship with his father. Nevertheless, as a youth Lincoln was reported to be not only amiable, bright and funny but also happy. The first serious depressive episode came -- as Shenk says such attacks often do -- in Lincoln's mid-twenties, during the late summer of 1835, when he was 26. Ann Rutledge, a charming young woman often rumored to have been his first love, died, and he seemed particularly distressed when rain fell on her grave; his friends were worried enough about him to set up a suicide watch. The Randalls dismissed Lincoln's love for Ann as a myth, but the next part of the story could not be denied: Something drastic happened in January 1841 that left Lincoln exuding gloom and unable to attend to his duties in the state legislature. The prevailing (Randall) story, which Shenk carefully corrects, had Lincoln splitting up with his fiancé, Mary Todd, on "that fatal first of Jany. '41," falling briefly into depression as a result, getting help from his friend Dr. Aaron Henry, leaving depression behind, reuniting more or less happily with Mary and going on to glory. Except for the glory, Shenk argues, that whole story is mistaken.

We don't know exactly what happened on "that fatal first of Jany.," but Shenk gives it a painstaking examination. The onset of depression involved not only Lincoln's misery about feeling tied to Mary Todd while being much drawn to another young woman, Matilda Edwards, but also professional calamities not usually connected to this episode. Shenk shows that they should be. Lincoln had been a chief proponent in the Illinois assembly of an ambitious scheme to build canals, railroads and roads, which had just then collapsed, destroying the state's economy and, perhaps, his political career. His old friend Speed left town and got married. The weather turned cold. And after Henry's horrific treatment, Lincoln did not just get over his depression. (If Henry followed the aggressive program we know he approved for others, the doctor would have "bled him, purged and puked him, starved him, dosed him with mercury and pepper, rubbed him with mustard, and plunged him in cold water.") He did go on with his life, but with both a new strength of purpose and a new susceptibility to melancholy.

Depression emerging in his mid-twenties, taking a deeper hold in his thirties and staying with him for the rest of his life: That is the story Shenk tells. It is not a story of crisis and recovery but of crisis and coping -- and of that coping leading to stunning creativity. The link between depression and artistic creativity is often affirmed; why not also (asks Shenk) with a creative politician like Lincoln? "In his mid-forties, the dark soil of his melancholy began to bear fruit," Shenk writes. "When Lincoln threw himself into the fight against the extension of slavery, the same qualities that had long brought him so much trouble played a role in his great work."

The book's title is carefully chosen. The older word "melancholy" has more flavor than our depressing modern word "depression"; it also had a broader meaning, including some positive aspects that Shenk finds illustrated by Lincoln. The president treated his melancholy not as some mysterious mental invasion by spooks but as something he could deal with in a rational way. That yielded an intense concentration on a high purpose. It also made him austerely realistic. "Lincoln saw the world as a deeply flawed, even tragic, place where imperfect people had to make the best of poor materials," Shenk argues. "The ethic that he proposed for his country -- continued struggle to realize an ideal, knowing that it could never be perfectly attained -- was the same ethic he had used to govern himself."

"Depressive realists" like Shenk (and Lincoln) would expect there to be a touch of the negative in a review, so I provide the following: First, sometimes this almost seems to be a pro-depression book; second, sometimes Lincoln's depression seems to be presented as the sole source of his greatness; and third, some readers, coming across page after page about gloom, misery, melancholy and depression, will say, "Enough already."

Shenk argues that the suffering that Lincoln "endured lent him clarity, discipline, and faith in hard times." But surely suffering does not do all that unless there is something strong that the suffering prods into action. Lots of people suffer; not all of them become great. I would suggest that Lincoln had intellectual and moral self-confidence, deep conscientiousness, a powerful desire to achieve something worthy, a romantic idea of his country and an unusual sympathy for creatures in distress -- all independent of his being depressed.

On the other hand, by treating Lincoln from this angle, Shenk does gain a dimension that not all Lincoln books achieve: Looking at his subject's darkness also means approaching his depth. Shenk deals well with the recently discovered Lincoln poem on suicide ("Yes! I've resolved the deed to do,/ And this the place to do it"); with Lincoln's alleged homosexuality; and with Lincoln's humor, a not-so-easy topic that the author tackles with the seriousness it deserves. Lincoln's Melancholy poignantly captures the subtle last phase of the president's life -- when his belief in an ordering Providence became more pronounced, when he insisted that "events have controlled me" even as he vigorously did his duty. "In his strange mix of deference to divine authority and willful exercise of his own meager power," Shenk writes, Lincoln achieved not happiness but "transcendent wisdom, the delicate fruit of a lifetime of pain."

Reviewed by William Lee Miller
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book. Depression = Insight!
This is an excellent book on several counts. First, besides revisionist historians it is not known that Lincoln was a lifelong depressive. Second, the author advances that Lincoln's depression was more a source of insight than a mental flaw. In other words, Lincoln's character and intelligence seemed greater because of his depression it. That's a pretty radical concept in our modern "Prozac Nation" when depression at any level is considered a serious mental illness that should be eradicated at all costs.

Lincoln lived in an era way before anti-depressants. But, just like John Nash of "A Beautiful Mind" fame who preserved his cognitive capabilities by not taking the drugs he was prescribed, Lincoln had no choice but to do without. And, according to the author the history of our Nation has been so much the better for it.

The author describes how Lincoln through the ages managed his depression through several different stages, including: Fear, Engagement, Transcendence, Creativity, and Humility. While the first stage [Fear] had a familiar and serious clinical component including recurring suicidal thoughts, the other four stages lead Lincoln to greater self-actualization, philosophical insights, spirituality, and commitment to guide and save our Nation.

The message from this original biography is powerful. By accepting one's humanity, we can actually grow. Some serious introspection even if painful is actually good for you. There is no need to medicate all your blues away. You may actually learn and grow for them. And, what Lincoln dealt with was not just the occasional blues. As depicted by the author, based on thorough historical research, he had a very serious case of depression. There is little doubt that nowadays he would be treated with anti-depressants. But, his life's achievements clearly question whether our modern psychiatric-pharmaceutical treatment is the best course.

In our contemporary culture it is a prerequisite to be an optimist and deliver the most upbeat message to be electable. But, is this the best way to choose a President? The author suggests otherwise. Referring to historians' researches, he mentions that many of our greatest minds were afflicted by more than a temporal case of the blues. Charles Darwin being a case in point. The author also mentions psychological research on perception of reality between optimists and others (slightly depressed or pessimists). Invariably, the optimists tested poorly with a more delusional perception of reality than the others less upbeat individuals.

If you like this book, I also strongly recommend Sylvia Nazar's "A Beautiful Mind" that depicts another luminary struggle with powerful mental illness. Also, "Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness" by Donald Barlett is an excellent biography. While Lincoln clearly overcame his depression without psychiatric assistance; the case of John Nash is more ambivalent. Did his psychiatric care help or hurt him? Meanwhile, Hughes clearly needed psychiatric help. But, he autocratically avoided it. As a result, he died prematurely an insane and debilitated man. In any case, all three subjects make for fascinating biographies. And, the mentioned authors succeeded brilliantly in their respective challenging tasks.

Well written and very thought provoking.
I purchased this book after reading the excerpt in The Atlantic magazine and have been very pleased. Shenk approaches this material in a fair, objective, and straightforward manner, and yet with a profound empathy for his subject that resonates with the reader. I found the book intelligent, thorough, and yet at the same time, insightful and easy to read. Perhaps most fascinating to me is the author's treatment of the reaction to (and acceptance of) Lincoln's society to such melancholy in others, and a general cultural understanding of the value and potential growth inherent in human suffering. I feel that this book will be interesting to Lincoln scholars, mental health professionals, and readers who have come to see depression as something that must be dealt with behind closed doors, away from public view.

Provides Insight into Lincoln AND Depression!
Lincoln's melancholy has been referred to for years and glossed over attributing it to an unhappy marriage, loss of a child, stress of leadership and momentous times and any number of reasons.

Looking back on Lincoln through the lens of today's better, though by no means complete biologic understanding of depression does 2 things that make this a very worthwhile read.

1. It puts Lincoln into a more sympathetic position recognizing the challenges that he faced and makes his accomplishments even more amazing. Lincoln has largely grown to mythological proportions following his death than how he was seen and understood in his own day. He is second only perhaps to Benjamin Franklin in that regard in American History. This helps to pierce the veil somewhat in a way that does nothing to diminish his accomplishments, but in so doing makes him more human and accessible.

2. The treatment of depression itself helps to bring Lincoln's disease into today in a way that hopefully will help those who read this to understand and extend more compassion to those who suffer from it. Those who suffer from it as well may find in this book handles to grasp that offer some hope and understanding. American society if anything, has become less compassionate and understanding of "weakness" in any form. In this work we see such "weakness" juxtaposed with the strength of an icon and it works well.

A wonderful merger of biography, history and psychology that bears reading more than once!