[3] Lincoln and Darwin is structured as a series of alternating narratives concerning each man's interactions with the events and discoveries of the mid-19th century.

[2] Lander explores similarities in the intellectual development, concerns, and impacts of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, focusing in particular on the issue of slavery in the United States, which both men influentially opposed.

[4] Lander's broader argument is that Lincoln and Darwin shared the same outlook on the central issues of race, science, and religion.

[1] Tom Allen, in The Journal of the Civil War Era, wrote that Lincoln and Darwin "is not always completely convincing" with regard to the "shared vision" Lander identifies, but concluded that the book "is well worth reading.

The prose is delightfully lucid, and the parallel account of two lives so apparently different provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual culture of the nineteenth century.