[DesScorp]

Horowitz falls far short of “knowing his history” regarding Lincoln. Thomas DiLorenzo does a good job of collecting Lincoln’s more interesting dictatorial actions.

I'm reading one of Lorenzo's anti-Abe books. It's a little too over the top. One thing I've noticed is that it's really, really hard to get a balanced Lincoln biography. They tend to be utter hagiographies (like Carl Sandburg's worship), or utter hatefests. I've stumbled on to an old history from Yale (dating from 1919) that's probably the most balanced account of Lincoln and the Civil War I've yet come across.

[achilles2000]

I agree. It is hard to find anything balanced on Lincoln. I also agree that DiLorenzo only discusses the negative - perhaps as effort at shocking people into realizing that the Sandburg Lincoln is a gross distortion. If the Yale history that you refer to is a mulitvolume history produced by Yale, I think I have it. I just haven’t read all of it because it runs for 10 or 20 volumes.