Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures)

Holzer, Harold

ISBN 10: 0674064402 / ISBN 13: 9780674064409

Editore: Harvard University Press (edition Illustrated), 2012

Riguardo questo articolo

With dust jacket. It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Codice articolo 0674064402-8-1-29

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures)
• Editore: Harvard University Press (edition Illustrated)
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0674064402
• ISBN 13: 9780674064409
• Rilegatura: Hardcover
• Edizione: Illustrated.
• Condizione: Very Good
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: sovraccoperta

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Emancipating Lincoln seeks a new approach to the Emancipation Proclamation, a foundational text of American liberty that in recent years has been subject to woeful misinterpretation. These seventeen hundred words are Lincoln's most important piece of writing, responsible both for his being hailed as the Great Emancipator and for his being pilloried by those who consider his once-radical effort at emancipation insufficient and half-hearted.

Harold Holzer, an award-winning Lincoln scholar, invites us to examine the impact of Lincoln’s momentous announcement at the moment of its creation, and then as its meaning has changed over time. Using neglected original sources, Holzer uncovers Lincoln’s very modern manipulation of the media—from his promulgation of disinformation to the ways he variously withheld, leaked, and promoted the Proclamation—in order to make his society-altering announcement palatable to America. Examining his agonizing revisions, we learn why a peerless prose writer executed what he regarded as his “greatest act” in leaden language. Turning from word to image, we see the complex responses in American sculpture, painting, and illustration across the past century and a half, as artists sought to criticize, lionize, and profit from Lincoln’s endeavor.

Holzer shows the faults in applying our own standards to Lincoln’s efforts, but also demonstrates how Lincoln’s obfuscations made it nearly impossible to discern his true motives. As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Proclamation, this concise volume is a vivid depiction of the painfully slow march of all Americans—white and black, leaders and constituents—toward freedom.

Informazioni sull?autore

Harold Holzer is Senior Vice President, External Affairs, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.