<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Manure from Hack!
Review: Charles Higham has long seen conspiracy theories under his bed. For most of us, going to bed means counting sheep and drifting off into a restful sleep, but for Higham it must be an entirely different experience. Perhaps his sheep all wear swastika armbands on their legs, baaing in syncopation with goose-stepping spies on their way to conspire with their Hollywood friends. Now, after a long and fruitless career hacking out spy laden fiction about Hollywood's brightest stars, he turns his attention to Abraham Lincoln. The switch from Hollywood figures to political icons is consistent with Higham's long rumored belief that every celebrity was not only a Nazi spy, but a closet homosexual intent on destroying the pillars of democracy. No matter - Higham's book is without merit. This book is no more than a long supposition bracketed by historical gobbledygook and pounds of manure shoveled up from Higham's seemingly endless supply of self-created excrement. Surely, he needs some fiber in his diet, and a backbone to go with it. A soul would help, too. But we need to keep in mind a fundamental truth when considering Charles Higham's long and lucrative career - he has the right to publish what he wants. Freedom is everything, and we need to accept that, even if it means that any deranged fool raised in a leper colony by a homosexual Franciscan monk from Mars can bellow about the conspiracy that occupies his dreams. Yes, they shoot horses and diseased cattle, but not people, and so the diseased are allowed their bellowing. Such people have the strength of their beliefs, and no dialogue from the rest of us will convince them that they are wrong. We should pity them. In any event, it appears obvious that Higham has reached the end of his career. He will still publish, of course, but he is much reviled. His "lack of journalistic integrity" (as historian Tony Thomas so aptly stated) is well known. At best, we should all pray that one day such illnesses are defeated and that one day Charles Higham will finally rest in peace.
Rating: 
Summary: charles higham and trading with the enemy
Review: Charles Higham's research connects various Copperhead merchants to the Confederate Secret Service, but fails to convincingly tie any of them to John Wilkes Booth. The book is worth reading primarily for its exploration of a new angle to Lincoln's assassination: Copperhead commerce with the South, reluctantly approved by Lincoln as necessary to the Union to finance the war, provided a cloak for an assassination conspiracy.Mr. Higham almost certainly has several things wrong. He assumes the plot to kidnap Lincoln was always phony and a cover for murder. But why would Booth write in his diary, "...we sought to capture (and changed to murder at the end)"? Why would Arnold and Surratt, years after they were safe from the law, provide details of Booth's planned abduction? It's also a huge stretch to say Surratt traveled 24 hours from Elmira, N.Y. to Washington on April 13-14 and spent only 5 hours in the city, most of which was devoted to getting his hair cut and watching a transvestite show. Finally, as with every single historian to have written on the case since 1865, Mr. Higham is willing to assume that Booth entered Lincoln's box without having determined in advance that Parker, the guard, would be absent. This, despite his precise timing of the gunshot to coincide with a laugh line in "Our American Cousin" and with Paine's assault on Seward. Booth acted according to a presumption to which he was not entitled, i.e. Parker would not be guarding Lincoln. He had to have known this.
Rating: 
Summary: Tantalizing but too much
Review: Those interested in the politics behind the war will find Higham's work at times fascinating and horrific. The book really brings home what happened apart from the battlefront. As revered as President Lincoln is today, he made some decisions that would make 21st century citizens of a democracy cringe. Alternatively, Lincoln's detractors and political opponents did the same. It seems unfathomable to me now that Lincoln could have been hated by so many, and this book really pierces the veil of the myth surrounding his presidency and the unity of all those in the Union. When one really ponders what Lincoln did - suspending the writ of habeas corpus, prosecuting publishers printing unfavorable information, trading with South, etc. - one realizes that Lincoln - just like everyone - is neither complete hero nor complete villain - but a convoluted mix of gray areas. But a reflection on Lincoln is not an intended objective of this book. Nor does it foster an argument that Lincoln deserved death. The focus here is the plot to de-throne Lincoln and make peace with the South, hatched by shadowy Confederate sympathizers, fringe Confederate spies, the European aristocracy, and some out-and-out crazies, like the chief villain George Sanders and assassian John Wilkes Booth. This objective is fulfilled in excruciating detail. Also deeply disturbing was the revelation of the "Young Americans" Hitler-youth-type organization, the assertion that Stephen Douglas planned for a military coup d'etat over Lincoln, and the whole affair between Confederate exiles conspiring with British/Canadians to incite war with England. A fascinating story is marred by the author's continuous barrage of trivial details. He throws so many names, places, and things at the reader that even the most astute Civil War scholar would be overwhelmed. The book reads like a novel and while that is good for easy reading, one has to wonder how the author dug up so much granular information 150 years later. The source notes - a paltry half-dozen pages at the end - do nothing to convince me that the author did in fact thoroughly validate the accuracy of his assertions. Personally, while I think the book does contain many facts, I have to consider it more a historical novel, like Gore Vidal's "Lincoln", than a history. "Dark Union", another recent and similar book on Lincoln during the war, is much better annotated.
Rating:
Summary: Many detours
Review: Too many detours og not enough murder case. The story is very disorganized with many unnecessary facts that only blurs the theory.
<< 1 >>
| 
