COMMENTING on Al Gore’s “The Assault on Reason,” Andrew Ferguson recently wrote a spirited essay for the Washington Post in which he wrote: “You can’t really blame Al Gore for not using footnotes in his new book . . .” His point was that Gore had attributed a quote to Abraham Lincoln without properly sourcing the quote. The American Prospect, however, was quick to point out that Gore’s book had endnotes, as opposed to footnotes, and they did indeed source the disputed quote.
So in the end, Ferguson looks either dishonest in suggesting there was no sourcing in Gore’s book, or lazy in not bothering to look at the end of it. Either way, Ferguson is a writer with an agenda, generally speaking, to dismiss liberal sympathies with humor. And his new book, “Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America” (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24), does just that.
“Land of Lincoln” has things going for it that most books about Lincoln rarely have: humor, passion and knowledge. Wry, amused and knowing, Ferguson conjures a leader that America now longs for through interviews with those who both love and abhor Lincoln. Some are chilling, such as the Confederate Sons who are polite but quite certain in their disdain; others are fairly ridiculous, such as the owner of Lincoln’s chamber pot.
Ultimately, he ends with a particularly touching story about how Lincoln’s an emblem of hope, even to a Holocaust survivor on a final pilgrimage. The final tale is so touching that I didn’t search for endnotes or footnotes. I just enjoyed the story.