Preface to the review which follows below: My work on Stephen Spielberg's film, Lincoln has been transformative. I have gone back to read W. E. B. Dubois’ Black Reconstruction in America, Doris Kearns Goodman’s Band of Rivals, and Fawn Brodie’s...

My thesis is that the film does a great historical disservice by portraying the Civil War as a debate among white people about Black people, who, in the film, hardly exist. I am especially disappointed and baffled by the decisions...