Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President And Fueled His Greatness

Shenk, Joshua Wolf

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618551166 ISBN 13: 9780618551163

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005

A dramatic reassessment of the life and era of Abraham Lincoln argues that America's sixteenth president suffered from depression and explains how Lincoln used the ailment and the coping strategies he had developed to deal with the crises of the Civil War and personal tragedy. 35,000 first printing.

Review:

"A profoundly human and psychologically important examination of the melancholy that so pervaded Lincoln's life....Remarkable." --Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of An Unquiet Mind

"Lincoln's Melancholy is an extraordinary story, for the depth of its scholarship and the lure of its style." --Mike Wallace, cohost of CBS's "60 Minutes"
"Lincoln not only coped with his depression, he harnessed it. Joshua Wolf Shenk [explains how] masterfully and memorably." --Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
"A profoundly human and psychologically important examination of the melancholy that so pervaded Lincoln's life....Remarkable." --Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of An Unquiet Mind
"This is sensitive history, with important implications for the present." Publishers Weekly
"A significant contribution to the study of Lincoln and his battle with depression that will resonate with contemporary Americans. . .inspirational." Kirkus Reviews, Starred
"Compelling...An estimable contribution to the Lincoln literature." Booklist, ALA
"[Shenk argues] with uncommon common sense, a rare understanding of historical context, and a close reading of the primary sources." Library Journal Starred
"Intellectually energetic. . .By treating Lincoln from this angle, Shenk does gain a dimension that not all Lincoln books achieve." --William Lee Miller The Washington Post
"It contains some extremely beautiful prose and fine political rhetoric and leaves one feeling close to Lincoln, a considerable accomplishment." --Andrew Solomon New York Magazine
"A fresh, fascinating, provocative pschohistory." --Sanford D. Horwitt The San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author:

JOSHUA WOLF SHENK is an essayist and independent scholar whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and in the national bestseller Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, Mother Jones, and other publications. He has been a correspondent for the New Republic, the Economist, and U.S. News & World Report. A contributing editor to the Washington Monthly and a faculty member at New School University, Shenk serves on the advisory council of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and consulted on the History Channel’s film Lincoln. He lives in Brooklyn.