Overview

One of the nation's foremost Lincoln scholars offers an authoritative consideration of the document that represents the most far-reaching accomplishment of our greatest president. No single official paper in American history changed the lives of as many Americans as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. But no American document has been held up to greater suspicion. Its bland and lawyerlike language is unfavorably compared to the soaring eloquence of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural; its effectiveness in freeing the slaves has been dismissed as a legal illusion. And for some African-Americans the Proclamation raises doubts about Lincoln himself. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation dispels the myths and mistakes surrounding the Emancipation Proclamation and skillfully reconstructs how America's greatest president wrote the greatest American proclamation of freedom.

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Reviews

This impressive work is a splendid history of the genesis, issuance and aftermath of Lincoln's epoch-making Emancipation Proclamation...The political and legal reasoning behind Lincoln's series of hugely difficult decisions has never been presented so well before nor in such authoritative detail...It's hard to imagine that this book will soon be surpassed as the definitive work on the subject. <p>-- Publishers Weekly (starred)

The complex story of how the war to preserve the Union evolved into a war to give that Union 'a new birth of freedom' has been told many times -- but never so well. -- James M. McPherson

The complex story of how the war to preserve the Union evolved into a war to give that Union 'a new birth of freedom' has been told many times -- but never so well. -- James M. McPherson A brisk and elegant narrative that is likely to stand for some time as the definitive account of Lincoln's noblest achievement. . . . Guelzo's book succeeds in restoring emancipation to its historical context. . . . He has provided the best account to date of the political virtuosity and unswerving idealism that gave Lincoln his victory in the difficult battle to destroy slavery. -- Los Angeles Times Immediately takes its place not only as the newest study of emancipation, but far and away, the very best. -- Harold Holzer, Civil War Book Review Most if not all of the preceding works [on the Emancipation Proclamation] will now pale with the publication of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by [this] highly respected Lincoln scholar . . . With this volume, decades of misunderstanding about Lincoln's most controversial action now give way to exactly what Lincoln's proclamation was, for then and for all times. -- Richmond Times-Dispatch

The complex story of how the war to preserve the Union evolved into a war to give that Union 'a new birth of freedom' has been told many times -- but never so well. -- James M. McPherson Most if not all of the preceding works [on the Emancipation Proclamation] will now pale with the publication of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by [this] highly respected Lincoln scholar . . . With this volume, decades of misunderstanding about Lincoln's most controversial action now give way to exactly what Lincoln's proclamation was, for then and for all times. -- Richmond Times-Dispatch Immediately takes its place not only as the newest study of emancipation, but far and away, the very best. -- Harold Holzer, Civil War Book Review A brisk and elegant narrative that is likely to stand for some time as the definitive account of Lincoln's noblest achievement. . . . Guelzo's book succeeds in restoring emancipation to its historical context. . . . He has provided the best account to date of the political virtuosity and unswerving idealism that gave Lincoln his victory in the difficult battle to destroy slavery. -- Los Angeles Times

Most if not all of the preceding works [on the Emancipation Proclamation] will now pale with the publication of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by [this] highly respected Lincoln scholar . . . With this volume, decades of misunderstanding about Lincoln's most controversial action now give way to exactly what Lincoln's proclamation was, for then and for all times. -- Richmond Times-Dispatch

The complex story of how the war to preserve the Union evolved into a war to give that Union 'a new birth of freedom' has been told many times -- but never so well. -- James M. McPherson <br>

Author Information

Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, where he also directs the Civil War Era Studies Program and The Gettysburg Semester. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999) and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (2004), both of which won the Lincoln Prize. He has written essays and reviews for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, the Journal of American History, and many other publications.

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