Festival Welcomes Nation’s Leading Lincoln Scholars

In anticipation of the upcoming bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, Fall for the Book is pleased to a host a gathering of some of the country’s most notable Lincoln historians for a full day of discussions on Tuesday, September 23.


A morning session will feature award-winning biographer Daniel Mark Epstein, author of both Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington and The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage, which the New York Times recently praised as a “fascinating interweaving of the crisis-filled, mercurial career of Abraham Lincoln with an equally rocky tale of man and wife.” Andrew Ferguson, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, will also discuss his recent book Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America, which “embarks on a journey to the heart of contemporary Lincoln Nation” to discover our 16th president’s place in today’s U.S.A.


Three members of the advisory committee for the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission will headline the afternoon session. Michael Beschloss, named “the nation's leading presidential historian” by Newsweek, has written nine books on American presidents, including the national bestseller Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989. Joshua Wolf Shenk is the author of Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, and James L. Swanson wrote Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer.

Each session will be moderated by presidential historian Richard Norton Smith, scholar-in-residence in George Mason University’s School of Public Policy and Department of History and Art History.

Many of the facts of Abraham Lincoln’s life may be well-known: his birth in a log cabin in Kentucky on February 12, 1809; his leadership during the Civil War; his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and delivery of the Gettysburg Address; and his assassination at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. less than a week after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. But as the Bicentennial Commission stresses, there is still much to learn about the man and his legacy: "Surmounting race and assuring equal rights for all are Lincoln’s two major challenges still on the nation’s agenda. As the embodiment of the highest ideals and values of our nation, Abraham Lincoln can still help us meet those challenges. Through education programs, public forums, and arts projects, the Bicentennial provides an opportunity to re-examine what it means to be American in the 21st century."

The program at this year’s Fall for the Book hopes to serve as a cornerstone of that re-examination, as a looking back at a pivotal time in our shared history and as an assessment of both our nation’s present and its future.