"When you put this small volume down, doubt is dead: Here is a Lincoln we hardly knew.... Pinsker's book qualifies him as new member of the corps of civil war historians who know how to write lucidly for everyone.... A splendid job."
The Washington Times "Pinsker...uses rarely researched sources to portray a more accessible Lincoln in a place that helped shape ... Read morehim and his presidency."
Blue & Gray Magazine "A marvelous book, brimming with new information about the public and private lives of the Civil War president. The author tells a compelling story, based on thorough and impeccable research."
Michael F. Bishop, The Washington Post Book World "That most rare of things: a book that actually adds to the Lincoln literature, telling us stories we haven't heard before."
Publishers Weekly "Pinsker's important and fascinating book tells for the first time the story of Lincoln's summer White House, where so many of the major decisions of the Civil War were made. His research has been indefatigable, and Pinsker's findings will be new even to Lincoln specialists."
David Herbert Donald, Harvard University, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln "Exhaustively researched, elegantly written.... A treasure that no Lincoln or Civil War student can afford to overlook. It offers not only a fine history of the house itself, but also a startling view of Lincoln's little-known life as a commuter president.... Lincoln's Sanctuary compels us to reconsider historic events that we have long assumed unfolded at the White House. Pinsker's prodigious accomplishment demands that we redefine Lincoln's milieu. Thanks to this wholly original work, we may never be able to look at the Lincoln presidency in quite the same way."
Civil War Times Illustrated "An uncommonly original look at Lincoln during the war years.... Through Pinsker's probing inquiry into sources heretofore surprisingly underused, the ever elusive private Lincoln comes into new light. A book for our time and for all libraries."
Library Journal "An intimate portrait of Lincoln, down to his fondness for padding around in slippers. Writing soberly, Pinsker allows such details to speak for themselves, and most interesting for general readers, they reveal Lincoln's lackadaisical attitude toward his security arrangements. Parallel to quotidian affairs at the Soldiers' Home, Pinsker delves into greater matters that unfolded there, such as Lincoln's receipt of military news or his evolution toward emancipation."
Booklist "Matthew Pinsker's Lincoln's Sanctuary is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the sixteenth president. Not only does it deepen our knowledge of Lincoln and of the Soldiers' Home, the retreat where he tried to relax; this readable volume offers new insights into wartime Washington and the fighting of the Civil War."
Jean H. Baker, Goucher College, author of Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography "This is an impressive work by Pinsker. It is remarkably well-researched, and he writes with clarity and grace. Pinsker shows us that the Soldiers' Home was a 'personal center' for Lincoln, and that the place had a special 'spirit' in his story as President. That 'spirit' is, of course, a family story, and Pinsker tells it well."
David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory "A welcome addition to the ever-growing bibliography of Lincoln studies."
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