On February 12, 2009, numerous observances, conferences and books will celebrate the bicentennials of two major 19th-century figures: Lincoln and Darwin. Historian Contosta (Henry Adams and His World
) uses the coincidence of their shared birth date as the basis for a thin, sophomoric comparison of the two men. Both, according to Contosta, introduced paradigm shifts in how people thought about humanity, whether human dignity or our place in the natural world; both men struggled against attempts, such as slavery, to dehumanize people. And both were self-made men: Lincoln in the more usual sense of the term, Darwin because he rejected the path his father had chosen and found his own calling. At first glance, the author notes, Lincoln and Darwin are very different: the former from a frontier family who had little formal education; the latter, from a wealthy family, graduated from Cambridge. Yet they both lost their mothers at an early age; both struggled with doubts about religion, were ambitious and had quick minds. But Contosta mainly catalogues these differences and similarities without delving deeply into their significance, yielding no new insights into these two well-known lives. (Apr.)
