Lincoln the Inventor (Five Stars)

This excellent book looks at a side of Lincoln which is often overlooked... certainly Lincoln is considered to be to be a man of humor, a thinker and a moralist, but an inventor? Mr. Emerson looks at Lincoln's patent for a device to lift ships over shallow water to be yet another aspect of Lincoln's keen mind, which not only could distill ideas to their basic form but also solve problems in a practical way. Lincoln's personal dabbling in the mechanical arts did not stop at his own invention but continued on to his days as President, when he would speak to weapons manufacturers and other inventors, trying out their devices and identifying flaws in their design or, occasionally, recognizing them as new and unique. This volume might be slim but it explores this side of Lincoln's intellectual life which is rarely discussed today. If only there were an engineering school Lincoln could have gone to!