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Getting Mary Todd Wrong Means Getting Abraham Lincoln Wrong

Even the greatest biographies are fallible and promote fallacies. David Hackett Fischer said as much more than 50 years ago in his book, ‘Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought.’

Mathew Benjamin Brady via Wikimedia Commons
Mary Todd. Mathew Benjamin Brady via Wikimedia Commons
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

‘Abraham Lincoln: A Life’
By Michael Burlingame
Edited and Abridged by Jonathan W. White
Johns Hopkins University Press, 703 Pages

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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