Booknotes & Lincoln

Brian Lamb and the C-SPAN team worked hard to ensure Booknotes covered diverse subject matters. But Lamb naturally has personal interests in certain topics, and these topics were often covered more frequently on the program. One passion is learning about President Abraham Lincoln. Lamb interviewed nearly a dozen authors about Lincoln.

This in-depth analysis over a fifteen year period by such a prolific reader as Lamb provides insight into the President and reveals how authors have researched and thought about Lincoln over time.  Lamb’s interest in Lincoln exerted a profound influence, shaping both Booknotes and C-SPAN.

Brian Lamb was able to discuss this subject so frequently because Abraham Lincoln is a very popular topic for historians. Thus there are many well-researched and well-argued books released each year that analyze aspects of the President’s life and times from new perspectives

Honor's Voice

One such book was Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln by Douglas Wilson which appeared on Booknotes in March of 1998. Wilson, a professor and co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, analyzes Lincoln’s ascension from modest roots in the rural midwest to the Presidency.

Focusing on the formative years of 1831 to 1842, Wilson argues that this rise to power had many challenges and highlights points in Lincoln’s early career which had the potential to derail the future President.

Blood on the Moon

Books dealing with Abraham Lincoln on Booknotes cover diverse topics. While Wilson studied Lincoln’s early years, others focus on Lincoln’s politics, ideology, or assassination. Challenging common narratives about Lincoln’s assassination and the plot by John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators is the focus of Edward Steers, Jr.’s Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Steers’ background as a research scientist provided him with a fresh perspective to analyze Lincoln's assassination and discuss the topic with Lamb on Booknotes in 2002.

Lincoln

Author David Herbert Donald appeared on Booknotes on December 24, 1995 to discuss his book Lincoln. Like Lamb, Donald is a passionate Lincoln devotee.

Here, Donald sits in his office, surrounded by materials and books about the sixteenth President, while a bust of Lincoln sits on his desk. When Lamb traveled to the biographer’s home he “discovered that Mr. Donald really does live on Lincoln Road in Lincoln, Massachusetts.