Q&A with the author of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, STATESMAN HISTORIAN

Jesse Derber, author of Abraham Lincoln, Statesman Historian, answers questions on his new book.

Q: Why did you decide to write this book? 

While there are so many aspects of Lincoln’s life I find interesting, the most intriguing for me has always been how his life embodies the idea of self-transformation. While the young Lincoln is seen as the archetype of the self-made man, he continued to grow and reinvent himself throughout the rest of his life. Lincoln’s pursuit and cultivation of knowledge, skills, and virtue has always fascinated me. My focus in this book is on one aspect of this personal growth–Abraham Lincoln’s use of history in his political career, especially how he began developing, at roughly the age of 30, what we would recognize as the methods of the historian to advance his political objectives. 

Q: What is the most interesting discovery you made while researching and writing your book? 

After 15,000+ books having been written about him, there aren’t too many “discoveries” left for a researcher to find on Abraham Lincoln. However, I do believe, because of my focus, I am the first to discover several historical errors that Lincoln made. For example, in a speech he delivered in 1854, Lincoln argued that the Northwest Ordinance was responsible for the reduction of people held in slavery during Illinois’s final years as a territory and early years under statehood. However, rather than a decline, I found that there was a dramatic increase of enslaved people in Illinois both numerically and proportionally during those years. Using sources he likely had available to him, however, I was able to determine that the vast majority of his historical assertions were factually accurate. His historical arguments frequently hold up better than not only his contemporary historians but also many of those of later generations.

Q: What myths do you hope your book will dispel or what do you hope your book will help readers unlearn? The primary myth that I am hoping to dispel is the idea that good politics and good history don’t mix. This myth has arisen for good reason–almost always when a politician makes an appeal to the past, they corrupt it in order to justify their perceived political and financial interests in the present. Too often the past has been used to justify some of the most satanic acts in history. The wars in the Balkans of the 1990s, the genocide in Rwanda, and many of the recent conflicts in the Middle East are all examples of this from my lifetime. Abraham Lincoln shows us a better way. He teaches us that the past should be studied as “philosophy to learn wisdom from” rather than as “wrongs to be revenged.” Lincoln embodied this ideal, utilizing the methods of the historian to uncover this wisdom in order to overcome the incredible challenges he faced.

Q: Which part of the publishing process did you find the most interesting? 

Most of my work was done in isolation without anyone to consult, so I spent a great deal of time imagining what various historians would think if they read my book, a process I found thoroughly enjoyable. I also imagined what it would be like for my great grandchildren (if I were to have any) to read it a century from now. While it is my wish that scholars will continue to critique and build on the ideas in this book, I hope my descendants who will never know me will find something in this work that is true, meaningful, and resonating for their era, no matter what this future may hold. I hope that I can pass on to them a little of all the best that’s been handed down to me.

Q: What is your advice to scholars/authors who want to take on a similar project?

Pick your passion, not what’s trendy. Read broadly to avoid becoming intellectually isolated and rigid. I understand that my interests are different from most others in the field, but I still think what Confucius said more than two millennia ago holds true, especially for young scholars: “Worry not that no one knows of you; seek to be worth knowing.” 

Q: What do you like to read/watch/or listen to for fun?

I am rarely reading a single book at a time. Ever since 9/11 when I was 19, I’ve usually been reading three or four books at once. I didn’t read much before then. I recently finished several books on the Italian Renaissance (The Renaissance in Italy: A History and The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance: A Sourcebook by Kenneth Bartlett as well as Discourses on Livy by Niccolò Machiavelli). I am currently reading a couple of books on ancient Chinese culture (“This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China by Peter K. Bol and Choosing to Be Simple: Collected Poems of Tao Yuanming translated by Red Pine). I am also rereading David Mccullough’s Truman. As a change of pace, I’ve really enjoyed studying up on Carolina BBQ  (Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ: Every Day Is a Good Day by Rodney Scott and Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue by John Shelton Reed, Dale Volberg Reed, and William McKinney) and trying out a few recipes.


Jesse Derber is an independent scholar.


About Kristina Stonehill