Thomas James DiLorenzo (/diləˈrɛnzoʊ/; born August 8, 1954) is an American author and former university economics professor who is the President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

[2][3] He has written books denouncing President Abraham Lincoln and is well known among economists for his work chronicling the history of antitrust policy in the United States.

[29] DiLorenzo is critical of Alexander Hamilton's financial views, the concept of "implied powers" in the Constitution, the existence of a federal bank, and the use of Keynesian economics to increase the national debt.

But... his books generally sell better than those of academic 'Lincolnologists' and... [his] views help lay the foundation for conservative political action today", historian David Blight has recently suggested that we ignore these writings at our peril.

[33] Writing for The Daily Beast, Rich Lowry described DiLorenzo's technique in this book as the following: "His scholarship, such as it is, consists of rummaging through the record for anything he can find to damn Lincoln, stripping it of any nuance or context, and piling on pejorative adjectives.

"[34] In a review published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, David Gordon described DiLorenzo's thesis: Lincoln was a "white supremacist" with no principled interest in abolishing slavery, and believed in a strong central government that imposed high tariffs and a nationalized banking system.

Gordon quotes DiLorenzo: "slavery was already in sharp decline in the border states and the upper South generally, mostly for economic reasons".

[37][38] In 2002, DiLorenzo debated Claremont Institute fellow professor Harry V. Jaffa on the merits of Abraham Lincoln's statesmanship before and during the Civil War.

[40] Reviews in The Washington Post and Publishers Weekly both stated that the book seemed directed at unnamed scholars who had praised Lincoln's contributions.

Justin Ewers criticized DiLorenzo, saying this book "is more of a diatribe against a mostly unnamed group of Lincoln scholars than a real historical analysis.

He wrote that "Few Civil War scholars take Bennett and DiLorenzo seriously, pointing to their narrow political agenda and faulty research.

[45][46][47] Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank noted that the League of the South had listed DiLorenzo on its Web site as an "affiliated scholar" as recently as 2008.

[11][48] Milbank also wrote that DiLorenzo had in 2010 told a secessionist Web site, DumpDC, that "secession is not only possible but necessary if any part of America is ever to be considered 'the land of the free' in any meaningful sense".