今天，我读了《达芬奇传》。
这文章写达芬奇的创作史和著名作品的故事。我知道达芬奇的两个作品《蒙娜丽莎》和《最后的晚餐》。不仅这两部，他还完成了许多杰出的作品《蒙娜丽莎》《圣耶若姆》（未完成）《吉内薇拉·班琪》《音乐家肖像》（未完成）《抱银鼠的女子》《额饰女郎》《戴珍珠头饰的夫人像》《拈花圣母》《哺乳圣母》《柏诺瓦的圣母》《加罗法诺的圣母》《岩间圣母》《纺车边的圣母》《圣母子与圣安妮》《受胎告知》《博士来拜》（未完成）《基督受洗》（合作）《施洗者圣约翰》《酒神巴卡斯》《莉妲和天鹅》（原画遗失）《维特鲁威人》《世界的救世主》《最后的晚餐》和《安吉里之战》（原画遗失）等。达芬奇不仅完成了这些画作，还在科学上有很大的成就。他亲自解剖了几十具尸体，完成了最完美的人体解剖图。他还曾比哥白尼早三百年提出“太阳系”这个说法。认为太阳是一个发光的大球。地球绕着它转。而月亮不发光，只是反射太阳的光辉。在这里还提出了“恒星”“行星”“卫星”等天文名词。还算出地球直径7000英里，也就是12600千米。
读到这，我不禁疑惑：按常理，达芬奇要完成这些也得活80年。而他67岁就死了。为什么能在那么短的时间里完成这么多呢？而且只有《基督受洗》是合作完成的。原来，达芬奇比鲁迅还珍惜时间。他每天只睡15分钟！他一生有九成的时间用来完成画作。而我们呢？一天到晚只会虚度光阴。我们无法像达芬奇那样一天只睡15分钟。但我们必须要珍惜时间。

林肯传
Speaking as someone who admires Abraham Lincoln to a very deep degree, I found this small but powerful biography to be a beautiful addition to my collection of hefty Lincoln tomes.
The book itself in hardcover is a joy to hold with its compact size, readable typeface and bound-in ribbon bookmark. Whoever worked on this project obviously did it as a labor of love. They worked the details on this one.
You can't honestly compare this work to others like Carl Sandberg's "Lincoln" or "With Malice Towards None" or even my nice coffee table book of photographs taken of Lincoln. This work COMPLEMENTS those more comprehensive volumes. That said, it is not incomplete. It does an excellent job of hitting the hundreds of high - and low - points in Lincoln's too brief life. The pace moves quickly and precisely along so that you never have the feeling that you're being 'written down to' if that's the phrase I'm looking for. This one has NOT been dumbed down for the reader.
Personally I see this smaller volume as an 'annual read' to remind me of just how special Lincoln was as a man and as our nation's leader. He was willing, even at great personal cost, to do the right thing on the toughest, most entrenched issues in our nation's history to that point. Through all that he had to work through, he never lost his sense of empathy towards all who were involved. He knew personally what it was like to lose in what he thought was a good cause.
And I guess that's what stands out most about this very brief work. As you read along, you still get the sense of Lincoln as a man and as our finest President, and you do it in such a short time! What's that worth these days?
This would make an ideal first book on Lincoln OR it would make a fine addition to a collection of works on Lincoln... and it won't take you four score and seven years to read it.
2
This delightful small volume from Oxford Press written by one of the eminent Civil War historians of our time pays tribute to Abraham Lincoln, the 16th and arguably most revered President of the United States of America.
Every element of this book pays tribute to Lincoln, right down to its brevity, which echoes the terseness of the Gettysburg Address which itself lines the internal covers.
This volume, timed to release with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Lincoln, couldn't be more timely as America welcomes it's 44th President and the first beneficiary of the office Lincoln held from those oppressed classes whom he freed. The timely reminder being that leadership can make a difference and can guide a nation at war and struggling with its identity.
While that message can only be inferred and is a happy coincidence of timing, it is a timely message nonetheless and masterfully reflected in McPherson's brief book which can easily be read in one sitting.
This is a worthy volume for anyone's library to return to for inspiration and a reminder of what made us great in the past in terms of vision and drive. There are certainly more thorough volumes to be read on Lincoln, but for catching the salient elements that arise time and time again to remind us of this great man, there are none better.
3
Many noted authors have written countless volumes about the life and times of Abraham Lincoln. When I read that Civil War historian James McPherson had attempted, in only 65 pages, to capture the essence of the man who shepherded our nation through its greatest trials I was curious to see how well he could do.
I had my doubts at the first. When the first sentence starts out with "Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809..." I started to worry that there would be no more substance than a high school term paper. Fortunately, McPherson soon soothed my misgivings. After a somewhat dry synopsis of Lincoln's early life, McPherson briefly and with great insight touches on each and every key facet of Lincoln's career. He addressed the debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's election and subsequent efforts to prevent secession, his role in the war, his relationship with his cabinet, his personal and official views on slavery and emancipation, and his attempts to negotiate a peace with the Confederacy.
In every chapter, McPherson's admiration for our sixteenth president shines through, even when discussing Lincoln's questionable suspension of habeas corpus. I found this part especially interesting in light of recent events. The Bush administration used the same arguments that Lincoln put forth to justify its suspension of civil liberties. One could argue that, justifiably or not, Lincoln opened a Pandora's Box that subsequent less-scrupulous presidents have taken advantage of.
I have read a great deal about this period in history and yet, on a page-for-page basis, there are few books that can shed as much insight into the heart and mind of our greatest president. I highly recommend this book.
4
"Lincoln" is a remarkable look at Abraham Lincoln as he advanced from extremely poor, rural roots, in what was then the western United States, into both the Illinois legislature and the U.S. Congress for one term, through a career as a self-taught lawyer, and finally to the presidency. The author has extensively researched Lincoln's movements, first-hand accounts of his utterances, his formal speeches and writings, as well as official records kept in the discharge of his various duties and offices.
It is a fascinating look at the evolution of the character and personality of a man of meager origins and virtually no formal education. Lincoln was driven to make something of himself; this is best seen in his insatiable desire to educate himself. Beyond self-development, Lincoln had an inherent ability to relate to others. He combined humility with a great ability to tell stories. This ease among his fellow citizens led to his being elected to the Illinois legislature at a fairly young age and to a reasonably successful career as a lawyer.
Lincoln was a Whig and devotee of Henry Clay and his American system of internal improvements. But it would be completely wrong to regard Lincoln as mostly an opportunistic politician. He was principled, if anything. Manipulating a political view to get elected would have never occurred to Lincoln. Furthermore, Lincoln was a man of his word. When elected to Congress in 1846, he returned home after one term as he promised, though undoubtedly he could have been re-elected. However, the author shows that Lincoln became very astute politically with a substantial network of political friends both at the state and national levels.
Early in Lincoln's career, slavery was seldom an issue. But by the mid-1850s, slavery came to dominate the political and social life of the country. Lincoln, though clearly antislavery, was not an abolitionist. In his debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858 and on his way to being elected president in 1860, Lincoln articulated, often eloquently, a moderate position on slavery that resonated with a large segment of Northern voters. The extension of slavery to new territories became the foremost issue of the day as compared to eradication.
Lincoln was probably not technically qualified to be president; he had never held an administrative post of any importance. Nor did hundreds of high-level administrative assistants perform most of his duties, as is the case in the modern era. In addition, Lincoln faced perhaps the greatest challenge that any president in our history ever has. The secession of the South exacerbated political divides in the country. Not only did Lincoln have to deal with radical and moderate Republicans and War and Peace Democrats, but also his own cabinet, populated with some of his political rivals, exhibited the same sort of splits. Militarily, the U.S. was totally unprepared to put down a rebellion, as Lincoln called it, of the size that the Confederacy represented. He was often driven to the edge of his patience in dealing with a series of incompetent generals that cost the Northern armies defeat after defeat in the early years of the War.
The author captures the immense pressures on Lincoln during his presidency. His ungainliness was fodder for the various political factions that publicly labeled Lincoln as an "imbecile" or a "baboon." Though the presidency took a tremendous toll on Lincoln, he retained his generally good humor, even seeing countless numbers of nameless citizens straight from the streets in his office. He functioned at a high level of awareness, navigating the political minefields of the day, in making difficult decisions. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was just such a decision. It was a typically moderate Lincoln response to the antislavery and unionist extremists. When Lincoln was shot at the beginning of his second term, he had prevailed and brought the country through a terrible experience through the sheer strength and flexibility of his intellect and personality. One doubts whether there existed another individual in the country at that time, who could have dealt with all of the issues that Lincoln did with the same degree of success.
Though the author is favorably deposed towards Lincoln, he does not push Lincoln on the reader - he does not have to. He does a great job of letting the reader closely watch Lincoln in action for about forty years. It is an incredible story.
5
Recently, I picked up David Herbert Donald's biography of Abraham Lincoln for the second time in 4 years. I now realize that I was too young then to appreciate this superb account of the our 16th President. Inspired by a meeting with President Kennedy in whick JFK criticizes historians for judging presidents who must make decisions without the 20/20 hindsight of historians, Donald undertook to write this biography from Lincoln's perspective -- analyzing him and his decisions based upon only what Lincoln knew, believed, and sought to accomplish at the time. We see the great struggles of the mid-1800s completely through his eyes; thus, while Donald doesn't delve into what (I'm sure) are fascinating related subjects, like the details of the great military campaigns or internal Confederate politics, we do gain an insightful look into the life and character of America's greatest president.
I agree with other reviewers that while there is not enough of Lincoln's personal life -- at times I had to remind myself that the man even had kids! -- Donald still skillfully paints a portrait of an amazingly complex man. Fueled by a desire to escape the fate of his uneducated, unambitious father, Lincoln felt driven all of his life to succeed ; he felt pushed forward to a great destiny by God, or the "Doctrine of Neccsity",that was completely out of his control and would lead him safely down life's path. He was an incredibly charming man who could light up a room with his energy, but he also regularly plunged into a deep and dark depression. He was utterly self-confident and knew he was the equal of any man. Intitially a moderate who opposed abolishing slavery in the states, he slowly realized that either slavery would be destroyed, or the Union surely would be.
He was also a master politician. He sensed early on in the 1840s that the nation was on the brink of a new era and that the Whig party had to adapt to the changing times, or die. After his beloved Whig party disintegrated, he helped establish the IL Republican party and, after an unsuccessful run for the Senate in 1858, triumphed over well-known and powerful opponents like William Seward and Salmon Chase to win the presidential nomination and election in 1860. Throughout his political career and his tenure as President he stuck to the center and walked a tightrope between the Conservatives and Radicals in his own party and the Peace Democrats in the other party. While unailingly honest, he understood the political value of ambiguity to cloud facts that he would admit only if forced. Finally, at the dawn of his second term, he had so outmaneuvered all of his opponents in the Congress, in the North, and in the South, that he stood as the unquestioned master of American politics -- not bad for a boy who had grown up in a log cabin with less than a year of formal schooling.
Doanld shows us Lincoln, the man and not merely the statue. Like the rest of us, he was a fallible human being who wasn't always sure that what he was doing was right but sure that he owed it to his country to serve it with honor and dignity in its hour of greatest peril. Donald makes it clear that we owe our country to this man, and one can't put down this book without agreeing.
6
David Herbert Donald's biography of Abraham Lincoln is an outstanding work that emphasizes his most important aspect, his humanity. Lincoln came to the presidency with one of the skimpiest political resumes of any non-General in American History. Donald shows how this Washington outsider had to grope his way around at first, but then used his remarkable skills to find the political center, which was vital though he often seemed to stand alone. Donald's book focusses on Lincoln's life through Lincoln's eyes. He does not go into great detail about Civil War battles or anything else that Lincoln did not personally witness. The result is a biography that is as thorough as it is readable and that, like its subject, will stand the test of time.

内容简历50字
《达·芬奇传/中外名人传记丛书》以历史事实为依据，生动地刻画了达·芬奇身在文艺复兴这一大时代的特定社会环境下的辉煌与暗淡，丰富细腻地描写了达·芬奇的内心情感世界及其具有传奇色彩的一生。
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