In writing Lincoln, David Donald set out to do two things: first, provide a thorough explanation of Lincoln's decision-making process, and second, highlight the "essential passivity of its nature” (14). Unfortunately, he only succeeded in one of them. This is the first one he has accomplished. The inspiration for the expository-style story came from something President John F. Kennedy once confided to Donald. President Kennedy, disturbed by the practice of ranking presidents and how his own administration would be perceived in the future, complained to Donald that "no one has the right to rank a president... who does not 'didn't sit in his chair, didn't look at the mail.' and the information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions” (Donald 13). Consistent with this idea, Donald provides the texts the reader needs to judge Lincoln's merits for themselves while keeping his own work as neutral as possible. possible. He uses primary sources almost exclusively and limits the material in the book to what Lincoln would have known (Donald 13-14), ensuring that the reader's mind is not clouded by either historical bias or superfluous facts when examining Lincoln's decision-making. . More importantly, he himself does not judge Lincoln. Nowhere in the book will we find a passage explaining whether Lincoln's decisions were right or wrong. Donald focuses his historical analysis on how various events and ideas influenced the 16th American president, not on the validity of his decisions. Donald also claims that Lincoln exemplifies the president's passivity. By passivity, Donald means that Lincoln preferred to react to situations rather than start with a plan. He claims that this passivity, as well as... middle of paper......to move African Americans to a part of the world where they could establish their own government. Lincoln again copied this notion and kept it until he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Fredrickson's article provides insight into the context of Lincoln's racial ideas that were underdeveloped in Donald's book. Overall, Lincoln is a comprehensive study of the life of Abraham Lincoln and is a factual goldmine. Donald's failure to summarize the paragraphs and lack of a conclusion makes it difficult to understand the whole picture if the reader is unfamiliar with the story of Abraham Lincoln. This book is therefore better suited to researchers and history buffs. Although Donald's thesis was poorly supported, the value of his book lay not in the argument, but in the amount of information contained in the pages, making the thesis the secondary focus of the work..