Description
Book SynopsisFew people are aware of the connection between Robert Burns and Abraham Lincoln. In
Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns, Ferenc Morton Szasz reveals how famed Scots poet Robert Burns - and Scotland in general - influenced the life and thought of one of the most beloved and important US presidents.
Trade Review“Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns is comparative history at its best.”—Frank J. Williams, Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, author of Judging Lincoln
“In the ever burgeoning field of Lincoln studies and Lincoln literature, Szasz has contributed an interesting, thoughtful, and well-researched account of how Burnsian the United States may be given the affinity the sixteenth president had for the humble Scottish poet.”—H-Net
“Szasz reveals how the president was influenced by the writings of Robert Burns, Scotland’s renowned 18th-century poet.”—Civil War Times
“[Szasz] has claimed that Lincoln could recite Burns’ work by heart . . . and that the Scot’s passion for social justics fueled the U.S. leader’s crusade to emancipate African Americans.”—The Scotsman
“Szasz argues that, although the two men did not live at the same time . . . Burns became Lincoln's favorite writer and an influence on his prose and thought, as the result of Burns's fame and the passage of his verse to the United States through Scottish immigrants.”—Journal of American History
“The fruit of meticulous research on both sides of the Atlantic, this beautifully crafted, sensitive analysis offers intriguing and instructive insights into the numerous parallels and intersections between the life stories of two men who were to become the embodiment of their respective nations in all their contradictions.
In January 2009 Scotland will mark the 250th birthday of Robert Burns. Seventeen days later America will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. It is particularly fitting that these celebrations should be preceded by the publication of an engaging comparative study that breaks new ground in our understanding of the linkages between two complex and contradictory emblems of universal humanity.”—Marjory Harper, University of Aberdeen, author of Adventurers and Exiles: The Great Scottish Exodus
