Person

David S. Reynolds

Bylines

Grant vs. the Klan

New books reconsider how Ulysses S. Grant became a forceful defender of the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.

by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on September 26, 2024
"A Fiendish Fascination"

The representation of Jews in antebellum popular culture reveals that many Americans found them both cartoonishly villainous and enticingly exotic.

by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on February 1, 2024
Throngs of Unseen People

A new history of spiritualism during the Civil War era suggests an unexpected link between the Lincoln family and that of John Wilkes Booth.

by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on September 15, 2022
He Was No Moses

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.

by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on December 16, 2021
When Slaves Fled to Mexico

A new book tells the forgotten story of fugitive slaves who found freedom south of the border.

by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on May 13, 2021
Lincoln’s Rowdy America

A new biography details the cultural jumble of literature, dirty jokes, and everything in between that went into the making of the foremost self-made American.

by David S. Reynolds, Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on April 29, 2021
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Channeling Lincoln’s Ideological Balancing Act Will Lead Biden to Success

In his time, the 16th president drew comparisons to a famous tightrope walker.

by David S. Reynolds via Made By History on November 20, 2020
Fine Specimens

How Walt Whitman became the quintessential poet of disability and death.

by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on March 11, 2018

Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America

David S. Reynolds

Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times

David S. Reynolds

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This Guilty Land: Every Possible Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is widely revered, while many Americans consider John Brown mad. Yet it was Brown’s strategy that brought slavery to an end.

by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on December 17, 2020

Abraham Lincoln

Why We Keep Reinventing Abraham Lincoln

Revisionist biographers have given us countless perspectives, from Honest Abe to Killer Lincoln. Is there a version that’s true to his time and attuned to ours?

by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on September 21, 2020

Harriet Beecher Stowe imagining her characters.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the Art of Persuasion

Stowe’s novel shifted public opinion about slavery so dramatically that it has often been credited with fuelling the war that destroyed the institution.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via The New Yorker on June 6, 2011

Photo of John Brown holding a flag and raising his right hand as if in oath.

A Hero in the Midst of Cowards

The righteous rage of John Brown.

by Jonathan Burdick via The Erie Reader on December 4, 2019

An elderly Walt Whitman with his nurse Warren Fritzinger.

Walt Whitman's Boys

To appreciate who Whitman was, we have to reinterpret the poet in ways that have made generations of critical gatekeepers uncomfortable.

by Jeremy Lybarger via Boston Review on May 30, 2019

Gen. Lew Wallace, circa 1861.

The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War General and Author of Ben-Hur

The incredible story of how a disgraced Civil War general became one of the best-selling novelists in American history.

by John Swansburg via Slate on March 26, 2013

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