Lincoln's Melancholy

How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness

De: Joshua Wolf Shenk

Narrado por: Derek Shetterly

Drawing on seven years of his own research and the work of other esteemed Lincoln scholars, Shenk reveals how the sixteenth president harnessed his depression to fuel his astonishing success.

Lincoln found the solace and tactics he needed to deal with the nation’s worst crisis in the “coping strategies” he had developed over a lifetime of persevering through depressive episodes and personal tragedies.

With empathy and authority gained from his own experience with depression, Shenk crafts a nuanced, revelatory account of Lincoln and his legacy. Based on careful, intrepid research, Lincoln’s Melancholy unveils a wholly new perspective on how our greatest president brought America through its greatest turmoil.

Shenk relates Lincoln’s symptoms, including mood swings and at least two major breakdowns, and offers compelling evidence of the evolution of his disease, from “major depression” in his twenties and thirties to “chronic depression” later on. Shenk reveals the treatments Lincoln endured and his efforts to come to terms with his melancholy, including a poem he published on suicide and his unpublished writings on the value of personal—and national—suffering. By consciously shifting his goal away from personal contentment (which he realized he could not attain) and toward universal justice, Lincoln gained the strength and insight that he, and America, required to transcend profound darkness.

©2006 Joshua Wolf Shenk (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Very interesting

I wasn’t familiar with Lincoln’s biography. I found it very interesting to learn about his mental health issues and how he managed to deal with them. Also very interesting to learn about various historians of different times addressed the topic and why. Very pleasant listening.

Excellent!

I very much enjoyed listening to this book! I learned a great deal. It was easy to read and is easy to listen to.

The Story You Don't Know About Lincoln

There are few historical figures who have been written about as often as Abraham Lincoln. Which makes it a surprise when, as a history buff, one comes across something as enlightening as Joshua Wolf Shenk’s book. While I had been aware of some discussion of the sixteenth President’s mental health, coming to this book was a revealing journey of a the man’s struggles and victories (however small and brief at times) and how they shaped the man who ultimately brought America through the greatest crisis of its first century: the Civil War. A trial that, as Shenk reveals, required all the strength, skill, and what we’d today call coping mechanisms to preserve the Union. Shenk also explores, in the lengthy closing portion of the book, how this aspect of Lincoln’s life was once a bigger part of the public man but fell afoul of changing historical and societal attitudes to become overlooked in more recent times.

But for anyone struggling with their own well-being or is simply a history buff looking for a side of a well-known figure they likely never knew about, Lincoln’s Melancholy is well worth a read.

Outstanding Insight

This book really got to the heart of Lincoln’s character, charisma and challenges throughout his lifetime through the lens of his melancholic nature. So well documented and narrated, it was like watching a Ken Burns film narrated by David Mcculloch in your head.

Good and in depth view

This was a good book that brought a lot of good and insightful revelations on Abraham Lincoln as a man, a political leader, and as someone battling depression. This highlights a lot of valuable perspectives on depression and suffering as a whole, showcasing the possibilities when one views it from a wide lense perspective. During this whole time you get a remarkable perspective on who Abraham Lincoln was beyond the elevated and inspiring historical figure.

A wonderfully human leader

We have come to see Lincoln as the man in marble. It's in this light that we often lose sight of the fact that Lincoln was human and experienced the full range of human emotions. Historians at the turn of the 20th century sought to downplay the vast amount of evidence that suggested Lincoln was capable of profound leadership and also sometimes not being all right. In this wonderful biography that misinterpretation is corrected. Using vast amounts of primary sources the author humanizes Lincoln and shows how his emotional struggles elevated his greatness. One of the best biographies of Lincoln on the market.

Lincoln -the real person

An outstanding treatment of personal transmutation of mental weakness, a mastercase of how to do it, of how to turn the lead of life into gold. A refreshing refutation of shallow mind over matter simplifications. Hat tops off!

Interesting.

Narration is clean and engaging.

Author brings up important point: in Lincoln’s time, melancholy meant deep and contemplative, not down in the dumps. That is why so much of his writing is so insightful and humane. This is a very important point.

I love Lincoln, his writing, courage, wisdom, tolerance, courage, people skills (though I do not understand why he stuck with Mary. What a downer was she!).

What I have not been able to reconcile is given how “depressed” he was, is how he could lift himself out of depression to be so brilliant, gifted. Now I understand that I previously thought was depression, as incurrent understanding of clinical depression, was not descriptive of Lincoln’s deep, insightful, complex appreciation of all aspects of the human condition, the unavoidable painful challenges as well as love of the goodness in all of us, including the good, the bad, the wise, the unwise, the privileged, the downtrodden—virtually empathic, intelligently discrimination between the immoral and immoral.

Holy Toledo!!! What a gift is he to the worlds pantheon of greats.