Hoisted from Comments: Thoughts on Lincoln
Harold said...
Masur and Robin also saw Mrs. Keckly gazing up adoringly and gratefully at the Lincolns whereas the film saw her glaring angrily at the Lincolns and other white people and pointing out that she gave up her son as the Lincolns are frantically trying to prevent their own son from sacrificing himself.
J. Bradford DeLong said in reply to Harold...
Touché... Once again, the sense that they are trying much too hard to see a different movie than the one in front of their noses...
Ed B. said...
The structural problem here is the inability of history as a profession over the last thirty years to figure out how to deal with political activity, including political leadership. The mandate for rendering visible the effects of history made from below has been transformed into an incapacity to admit that political decisions made from "above" can 1) have positive effects 2) be made in any degree out of independent agency. The #1 flashpoint of these contradictions in the study of US history is surely the figure of Abraham Lincoln. Many historians so routinely seek ways to undermine the myth of Lincoln as Great Emancipator that they erase distinctions between him and the fifteen who proceeded him in the Presidency. Yet only Lincoln used the power of the federal government to promote emancipation, even before 1862. Any President could have sought emancipation in the District of Columbia. Only Lincoln did this. And that was only the beginning.
Bloix said in reply to Ed B....
This comment captures my reaction to the Robin post much better than I was able to say it, even to myself.
J. Bradford DeLong said in reply to Ed B....
Nicely put...
You could have two different narrative lines running--the high-politics one, and the lived-experience one of how high politics shapes life on the ground and how what is happening on the ground shapes high politics. And Spielberg and company do do a little bit of that. Were I King of the World, I would have made them do considerably more...
