A review by pacey1927
The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution by James Oakes

3.0

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of "The Crooked Path to Abolition" in exchange for an honest review. I am really interested in Abraham Lincoln and anything pertaining to his history. Therefore I jumped at the chance to read and review this new book. I will say that the book is well researched and informative. I will also say that I found the book to be extremely dry and dense. The first half of the book essentially made points about pro-slavery vs anti-slavery readings of the constitution and how different groups of people in America viewed the document that decides everything two very different ways. I kept reading and finished the book hoping against hope for any personal details but came away without that. I did appreciate a review of statements that seemed so out of character made by Lincoln regarding slaves and black Americans and why he likely made those statements to pacify certain people politically. However by analyzing those statements, it is made clear that he rarely, if ever, made those statements from a place of his personal views. I definitely found some new tidbits to think over with this book but I didn't come away with what I hoped for with this book.