David Kent’s Reviews > Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours > Status Update

David J. Kent shows in this absorbing, definitive account of that quintessential Westerner’s transformative visits to the East. The result is a multi-layered exploration of a leader on the threshold of greatness—even out of his comfort zone.

Harold Holzer, Winner of the Lincoln Prize

No Lincolnians can claim to have comprehensively visited the Lincoln sites without touring New England, something they will especially enjoy doing with this book in hand to provide insight and entertainment along the way.

- Michael Burlingame, PhD, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

Abraham Lincoln is customarily associated with Kentucky, Illinois, or the Midwest in general. In Lincoln in New England, however, Massachusetts native David J. Kent retraces Lincoln’s 1848 and 1860 forays into the region to offer illuminating reflections on Lincoln’s life and career, the meaning of the Civil War, and related aspects of U.S. history.

- John C. Rodrigue, PhD

David J. Kent’s Lincoln in New England is so full of fascinating characters, events, Lincoln iconography, and cultural insight that I was hooked.

—Jason Emerson, author of Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln

"a lively, interesting book [that] provides rich detail and context to the political issues that would ultimately tear the nation apart, and it also illuminates part of Lincoln's personal journey from raw stump speaker to a more thoughtful man on the eve of his own presidential nomination."

William F. Hanna, Author of Abraham Among the Yankees: Lincoln's 1848 Visit to Massachusetts

David J. Kent covers new ground with his detailed account of Abraham Lincoln’s most consequential campaign tours. He provides a fresh perspective on Lincoln’s character, will and judgement just one year prior to his becoming President of a nation at war with itself.

Brian Keefe, President, Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home

David J. Kent has filled the gap with this engaging combination of travelogue, autobiography, and history that illuminates Lincoln’s little-known 1848 campaign tour in Massachusetts and his highly significant 1860 lecture/campaign trip starting in New York and followed by a multi-stop swing through Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. -- Michael Burlingame, PhD, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life