2009 Neo-Confederate Grand Champion Nominee

Dan,

With all due respect, surely this is one case where you can judge a book by it’s cover. The title and subtitle clearly says it all! You’ve written, yourself, that you don’t intend to read it.

I certainly won’t be parting with my money having seen the cover, and now read the synopsis on Amazon. This may seen unfair, but the cover is part of the sell … the initial hook. No doubt, the cover will appeal to some, as will the synopsis. I’m sure that the less broad-minded readers will enjoy the bigotry that neo-confederate authors still espouse; with the cover/synopsis being clearly targeted at that audience. From that, I believe, you can reach a subjective opinion on a book – and this one is clearly in bad taste.

Best wishes,

Mark

Eric,

The clear intent seems to be to link the Lincoln Administration to Nazi Germany through the 48ers. So the theme is not only Neo-Confederate, but also Neo-Know-Nothingism. The sensationalist attempt to equate the 48ers, who sought democratic reform in Germany through relatively peaceful means (compared to the French Revolution a half century earlier), and who supported abolition and egalitarianism in the United States as refuges, with the Nazis indicates to me that author’s “premise” relies more on racial stereotyping (all Germans are autocratic) than scholarship. Indeed, if anything, the uniform criticism of the German troops was that they were too secular and too liberal for the likes of their Anglo-Saxon Protestant leaders (Howard, Barlow, etc). Definitely not a book of interest.

Chris Van Blargan

dan,
you didn’t think Mein Kampf might be err…untrustworthy? You know, based on the fact that Hitler wrote it? That it was the kind of book that revealed more about the author than the subject.

This Lincoln book is like “Springtime for Hitler” only not funny. It’s the triple crown of crap: neoconfederate, hating the immigrants and a Godwin all wrapped in one.

Yes you can judge a book by it’s cover and the only missing from the cover off “lincoln Uber Alles” is Lincoln with a Hitlerian mustache and a brown shirt. It’s comical to make Lincoln into a 20th century totalitarian and to say so is a “RED FLAG” to any possible argument.

At best these Keepers Of Odd Knowledge have their tin-foil hats on way too tight, but at worst they are danger to the Republic and should be called out as so! Boo! Hiss!

Rick,
Your logic runs like this:

Since Winston Churchill was a slob, heavy drinker, smoker, and user of profanities he must therefore be a rotten fellow; since Adolf Hitler was a tea-totaller, vegetarian, and loved his dog he must therefore be a fine fellow.

Because President Obama has a Harvard education therefore he must be well-educated; and since Lincoln had no formal education he therefore must be ignorant and course.

You are welcome to comment on any book’s cover that is your prerogative. However, your comments can only be based upon your opinions of the cover and expectations of what then must be inside the book.

You haven’t read the book so you have no knowledge of the book’s contents and arguments or lack of same. My position is simple: read the book, then trash it. Or wait for others to do so, then discuss the trashing.

Trashing a book based upon its cover seems an insubstantive approach to understanding the book. Just as dismissing Churchill for a slob, or Lincoln for a simpleton based solely on appearances and snap judgments are mistakes based on mistaken percpetions and incomplete knowledge, trashing a book without having read it seems a position that most would not rush to defend.

Hi Chris,

>Your analogy falls flat.

How? I thought it quite illustrative.

If a book is dismissed or slammed by critics who have not read it, or studied it, their dismissal is based upon incomplete information, heresay, and opinion – essentially a lack of knowledge on the subject at hand, the book being criticised. If a movie critic slammed a movie in print and it was discovered that the critic never saw the movie, the critic would be accused of fraud and would be fired, correctly so, too. Same should go for literary criticism.

All of this discussion is entirely premature. If a critic has an opinion, the opinion must be validated by having read the book. Opinion based upon zero knowledge, and assumptions doesn’t seem to me to have much value.

There can’t be any intellectual debate on this book because nobody has read it. The entire discussion is premature.

This is not scholarship or intellectual discourse. This is an embrace of anti-knowledge and the supremacy of opinion over fact which I reject.

Best Regards,
Daniel

Hi Chris,

Excellent points.
You’ve essentially covered my concerns.

I’ve read lots of books that had stupid covers but excellent content, and vice versa.

My point is simple: As scholars and students we cannot make a legitimate case, pro or con, about a book without having read it.

If you would like to argue this particular point, please proceed.

Best Regards,
Dan

Dan,

Although I am highly skeptical, I can’t fault you for wanting to see if the content and cover match before passing judgment, but my guess is that, to use Gary’s analogy, you are going to need a new pair of shoes.

On a side note, I might take the argument a little more serious if Lincoln was dealing with Prussian military professionals of von Moltke’s caliber rather than failed revolutionaries such as Siegel and Blenker. After all, most of the 48ers with military experience were here because they were not good enough at their trade to avoid becoming refugees — a fact Lincoln did not fully realize until early 1864.

Chris Van Blargan

@Gary

That is similar to an analogy I like to use:

I don’t have to eat a piece of s##t to know it doesn’t taste like a candy bar.

I recently saw this book on amazon and was able to peruse the introduction to reconsider our previous debate which had centered on whether one could judge a book by its cover. Having now had the opportunity to read the author’s thesis, I can answer the question in the affirmative. Indeed, it is immeasurably worse than I had imagined.

The author’s central theme is that the North was bent on establishing a centralized, totalitarian government over the South’s objections. To achieve this end, Lincoln relied on recent German emigres whom the author portrays as being uniformly Marxist and/or totalitarian in philosophy.

Throughout the introduction, the author makes frequent comparison’s with the Kaiserreich under Bismarck and 20th Century Germany. For instance, the author claims that the North’s interest in slavery was nothing more than hypocritical pretext, as the North was, in the author’s words, engaged in a program of genocide against the Indians akin to the Holocaust. In this way, the author attempts to connect Lincoln with the Nazi’s through the German emigres by innuendo. Nevermind Carl Schurz’s stand on Indian affairs, and placement of blame on white speculators and frontiersmen who constantly enflamed relations.

While I am willing to entertain reasonable arguments that the Civil War brought about a centralized government that was contrary to the intent of Founding Fathers like Jefferson, as well as rational debates whether or not such centralization was, as a matter of political philosophy, good for the country, this is clearly not the book to find either of these.

Chris Van Blargan