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Article: Blue beard: a revealing look at why Lincoln's depression didn't cost him politically.(On Political Books)(Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged A President and Fueled His Greatness)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- December 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged A President and Fueled His Greatness By Joshua Wolf Shenk Houghton, Mifflin, $25.00
We do not tend to look for great psychological depths in American presidents. Political leadership is so often a matter of subordinating every other normal pattern of life to the pursuit of power that there is frequently very little, in psychological terms, left inside their souls. But even at those rare moments when the presidency is visited upon the cranky or the idiosyncratic--John Adams, say; or Thomas Jefferson--the account which gets written of them usually has all the clinical sophistication of a toothpick. After all, the ...