Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America

We're ringing in the 250th anniversary of the United States with an episode on Garry Wills's superb, Pulitzer Prize-winning 1992 book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade the America. It's central argument is that Abraham Lincoln succeeded in revolutionizing how Americans thought of the founding of their country, especially the Declaration of Independence, with the Gettysburg Address—a revolution not just in "thought" but in "style," one that placed the Declaration's assertion of equality at the very center of our political tradition. The book is one that only Garry Wills could have written, with his PhD in Classics allowing him to compare Lincoln's "funeral oration" to that of Pericles, with his long meditation on the American presidency and leadership preparing him to grasp the enormity of the task Lincoln set himself, and with his time at National Review in his youth helping him understand why the American right never forgave Lincoln for succeeding. We discuss all this and more in our conversation about one of our favorite writer's very best books.

Tickets for Sam's events: Tuesday with Tad Devine / Thursday with Dan Denvir.

Previous KYE episodes on Garry Wills:

Nixon Agonistes

The Kennedy Imprisonment (w/ Jeet Heer)

Bomb Power (w/ Madeleine Baker)

Sources:

Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992)

— Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (2010)

— "Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case!" Esquire, Aug 1, 1968

— "The Blind Teach Us to See," Boston Globe, Aug 20, 1970

Abraham Lincoln, "Letter to Joshua Speed," Aug 24, 1855

Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1959)

Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order (1974)

Willmoore Kendall and George W. Carey, The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (1970)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(276)

Gerontocracy in America (w/ Sam Moyn)

Lindsey Graham's death last week at 71 was as remarkable for the senator's relative "youth" as its possible political and electoral consequences, so much so that it actually prompted conspiracy theori...

20 Heinä 1h 8min

Why Patriotism [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. This conversation is something of a follow-up to our last episode on Garry Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Wo...

13 Heinä 11min

The Left Ascendant in New York City [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. In this episode we break down the results from last week's Democratic primaries in New York City, which saw cand...

29 Kesä 2min

Pope Leo XIV's 'Magnifica humanitas' (w/ Jack Hanson)

As promised, here is our episode about Pope Leo XIV's recent encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, in which he brings to bear Catholic social teaching on the perils of artificial intelligence and what they...

22 Kesä 1h 36min

Tucker Carlson and the Anti-Israel Right (w/ Peter Beinart) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Author and Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart returns to "Know Your Enemy" to discuss Tucker Carlson'...

15 Kesä 3min

Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History (w/ Matt Dinan)

Pull up a chair and pour yourself a drink! For the third installment in our occasional series on important conservative books, or important books written by or embraced by conservatives, we take up Le...

9 Kesä 2h 26min

Know Your Enemy, Live! (w/ Mike Duncan) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Last month, on May 14th, we were joined by nearly 800 listeners in New York City for the first ever Know Your En...

1 Kesä 3min