That is true. Even scholars who want to agree with DiLorenzo's thesis find the book very sloppy. Go here for a review. But those who disagree with DiLorenzo really haven't yet had their say in the press, so the final verdict will be even more negative.
The theses DiLorenzo presents aren't new: they go back to the post bellum writings of Confederate apologists. Historians have long since disposed of most of his charges, and they'll disprove them again, when Di Lorenzo's book shows up on their radar screens.
Of course Lincoln had been a politician and was a man of his times. I don't know of anyone who's studied the period who seriously thinks otherwise. Admitting that the man was human shouldn't be taken as some great new revelation. It's the beginning of understanding, not the end.
It seems to me that almost all of that reviewer's complaints are a few typos in the footnotes (which, by the way, occur a lot more often in ANY book than most realize). If that is the worst thing about DiLorenzo's book, I'd say he's in pretty good shape.
But those who disagree with DiLorenzo really haven't yet had their say in the press
Excuse me? Where exactly have you been for the last year, x? For a few months after the book's initial publication, the Declaration Foundation and Claremont Institute were publishing/sharing attacks against DiLorenzo and his book on a weekly basis. One of those rant was even picked up by National Review (which has drifted from a forum of debate over Lincoln back in the days when Harry Jaffa and Frank Meyer did their point/counterpoint series of articles on him to the current publication, where little else about Lincoln but praise ever makes it into print).
To say that these types haven't had a chance to make their case on DiLorenzo's book is akin to claiming that Bill Clinton never got a chance to defend himself against impeachment. It just happens to be the case with both that when those cases were made, they came out intellectually deficient.
The theses DiLorenzo presents aren't new: they go back to the post bellum writings of Confederate apologists.
In my own reading of his book, I found greater similarities to the libertarian approach, which takes its most famous roots in Lysander Spooner's "No Treason." Call Spooner whatever else you like, but I don't believe you could get away with describing him as a "Confederate apologist."
Historians have long since disposed of most of his charges, and they'll disprove them again, when Di Lorenzo's book shows up on their radar screens.
News flash, x. It's already shown up on their radar screens and their supposed "best and brightest," including Harry Jaffa, the so-called "greatest living Lincoln scholar," have attempted to take it on. The product they have produced has been sorely dissappointing to date. I do not expect this to change for them at any time in the future.