Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America [Paperback]

Garry Wills (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 12, 1993

Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1993, this is an account of the making of Lincoln's revolutionary masterpiece. Lincoln was asked to prepare a memorial for the battle at Gettysburg. Instead, he gave the whole nation "a birth of freedom" - by tracing its birth to the Declaration of Independence (which called all men equal) rather than the Constitution (which tolerated slavery). In the space of a mere 272 words, Lincoln combines the rhetoric of the Greek Revival and the categories of Transcendentalism, to provide stunning imagery of the Rural Cemetery Movement. His entire previous life and training, his deep political experience, went into this, his masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A former professor of Greek at Yale University, Wills painstakingly deconstructs Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and discovers heavy influence from the early Greeks (Pericles) and the 19th century Transcendentalists (Edward Everett). The author also probes Lincoln's decision to rely more on the Declaration of Independence than the U.S. Constitution, a decision Wills says represented a "revolution in thought." He speaks effusively of the 272-word address: "All modern political prose descends from [it]. The Address does what all great art accomplishes. [I]t tease[s] us out of thought." Wills' book won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

From Publishers Weekly

Wills ( Inventing America ) combines semantics and political analysis in this account of the most famous speech in U.S. history. He puts Lincoln's words in their cultural and intellectual contexts, establishing the contributions of New England Transcendentalism and the Greek Revival to the structure and the substance of the address. He also interprets the speech as revolutionary, since it's a speech, too for in it Lincoln bypassed as is, seems that Wills, not Lincoln, is bypassing the Constitution to justify civic equality and national union on the basis of the Declaration of Independence. Wills's analysis of the matrix of Lincoln's text is more convincing than his present-minded critique of "original intent." Nevertheless, he makes a strong case for his argument that the concept of "a single people dedicated to a proposition" has been overwhelmingly accepted by successive generations of Americans. BOMC, History Book Club and QPB alternates; author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 317 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Paperback Edition edition (June 12, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671867423
• ISBN-13: 978-0671867423
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #42 in Books > History > Americas > United States > Civil War > Campaigns & Battlefields > Gettysburg

More About the Author

Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine's Childhood, Saint Augustine's Memory, and Saint Augustine's Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln the Radical November 5, 2001

By bibliomane01

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Literary prizes are handed out every year, but true worth is manifested by actual readers going out and buying their books year after year. Nearly a decade has passed since Garry Wills won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for "Lincoln at Gettysburg," but the magnitude of his achievement is measured by the continued interest which book lovers have lavished on this thoughtful and debate-stirring work of history. Wills situates the Gettysburg Address in the Greek Revivalism exemplified by Edward Everrett (the forgotten featured speaker at the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetary), as well as in the Transcendentalist movement of Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He goes on to demonstrate the inherant radicalism of Lincoln's 272 immortal words, imbued as they are with the dangerous notion that all men are created equal. Wills argues convincingly that the Gettysburg address hijacked the narrow readings of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution put forward by the southern rebels; through his words, Lincoln succeeded in placing these founding documents on the side of the angels by insisting that liberty and equality rather than sterile legalisms about states rights were the true basis of the grand experiment of the founders. In so doing, America's greatest President changed the history of the nation forever, influencing politics and policy right down to the present day. Huzzahs to Mr Wills for disinterring the radical hidden within the Great Compromiser!! And thanks to the prize committees for getting it right for a change.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable, superbly written Lincoln scholarship. April 13, 2002

By C. W. Repak

Format:Paperback

This Garry Wills masterpiece is a suitable work of scholarship for America's greatest speech. He breaks down the Gettysburg Address line by line, thought by thought, not in linear fashion but according to five separate themes. He marks a place for Lincoln's speech in the tradition of funeral oratory, lays bare the antecedents in Greek rhetoric, and illustrates how the pitch-perfect brevity of the address marked a fundamental shift in American public speaking. Most crucially, Wills makes a thoroughly cogent case for Lincoln as the second Jefferson, responsible for the modern acknowledgement that the Declaration of Independence, with its claim (a claim its author didn't even believe) that all men are created equal, is the true founding document of the United States, rather than the Constitution (which in legal fact is the founding document), which shamefully kept silent on the fate of the "peculiar institution" that led to civil war. Wills's book is staggeringly erudite; he dazzles even when he leaves the poor reader's understanding far behind. The information he includes on historical context is compelling and will be new to even committed Civil War buffs. The book should be required reading in any course on American history or rhetoric and public speaking. Five stars aren't enough.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Scholarship and Fascinating History January 6, 2000

By Andrew C. Glasgow

Format:Audio Cassette

Wills carefully recreates the world of Lincoln's time in retelling the story of America's greatest speech. In the course of painting the intellectual, social, political, and military canvas that forms the background for the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery, he convincingly put forth his thesis: that the Gettysburg speech powerfully shaped the course of American history -- in ways that were much more profound than any piece of legislation, Supreme Court ruling, or other overt political act. Lincoln's speech not only defined what the Civil War was about, but also defined what the results of the war should be -- and because of the Gettysburg Address -- would be. The "better angels of our nature" must prevail not merely in re-uniting the disparate states, but in fact in redefining the American union and calling the nation to "a new birth of freedom".

Well deserving of the Pulitzer Prize, this is inspired exegesis of some of the most inspirational words in American history. It should be required reading for every citizen who casts a ballot.