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!

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(282)

MAGA’s Fight for Animal Rights (w/ Astra Taylor & Aaron Regunberg) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. We talk to Astra Taylor and Aaron Regunberg about their recent New Republic article about MAGA's embrace of anim...

31 Aug 3min

The Long Struggle Against Equality in America (w/ Kim Phillips-Fein)

In this episode, we're pleased to welcome back historian Kim Phillips-Fein, one of the truly outstanding observers of the right, past and present, working today, for a conversation about her new book,...

24 Aug 1h 44min

Conservatives in Disarray? [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. What is going on with the right? Why are they so mad at each other? What accounts for their apparent malaise? Wh...

17 Aug 6min

Archaeology and Annexation in Palestine (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

This episode begins by noting the proximity of two of the most significant events of the twentieth century, one archaeological, the other political: the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 and t...

10 Aug 1h 40min

UNLOCKED: Tucker Carlson and the Anti-Israel Right (w/ Peter Beinart)

This episode originally aired June 15, 2026 on Patreon — we're unlocking it for the rest of you. Author and Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart returns to "Know Your Enemy" to discuss Tucke...

3 Aug 58min

The Platner Ordeal (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Matt and Sam are joined by their great friend Dorothy Fortenberry to discuss the debacle of Graham Platner: the ...

28 Jul 4min

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 Jul 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 Jul 11min