Books by Harold Holzer

A new bookand companion to the Steven Spielberg filmtracing how Abraham Lincoln came to view slavery . . . and came to end it.Steven Spielberg focused his movie Lincoln on the sixteenth presidents tumultuous final months in office, when he pursued a course of action to end the Civil War, reunite the country, and abolish slavery. Invited by the filmmakers to write a special Lincoln book as a companion to the film, Harold Holzer, the distinguished historian and a consultant on the movie, now gives us a fast-paced, exciting new book on Lincolns life and times, his evolving beliefs about slavery, and how he maneuvered to end it.The story starts on January 31, 1865less than three months before Lincolns assassinationas the president anxiously awaits word on whether Congress will finally vote to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Although the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier had authorized the army to liberate slaves in Confederate territory, only a Constitutional amendment passed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states would end slavery legally everywhere in the country.Drawing from letters, speeches, memoirs, and documents by Lincoln and others, Holzer goes on to cover Lincolns boyhood, his moves from Kentucky to Indiana to Illinois, his work as a lawyer and congressman, his unsuccessful candidacies for the U.S. Senate and his victory in two presidential elections, his arduous duties in the Civil War as commander in chief, his actions as president, and his relationships with his family, political rivals, and associates. Holzer provides a fresh view of America in those turbulent times, as well as fascinating insights into the challenges Lincoln faced as he weighed his personal beliefs against his presidential duties in relation to the slavery issue.The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment would become the crowning achievement of Abraham Lincolns life and the undisputed testament to his political genius. By viewing his life through this prism, Holzer makes an important passage in American history come alive for readers of all ages.The book also includes thirty historical photographs, a chronology, a historical cast of characters, texts of selected Lincoln writings, a bibliography, and notes.

During the 1880s Louis Prang hired military and marine artists to create original scenes of combat and then reproduced their works in a popular portfolio of chromolithographs. This volume contains the complete set of 18 chromos and the original "descriptive texts".

In February 2009, America celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and the pace of new Lincoln books and articles has already quickened. From his cabinetGCOs politics to his own struggles with depression, Lincoln remains the most written-about story in our history. And each year historians find something new and important to say about the greatest of our Presidents.Lincoln Revisited is a masterly guidePub to whatGs new and whatGs noteworthy in this unfolding storyGa brilliant gathering of fresh scholarship by the leading Lincoln historians of our time. Brought together by The Lincoln Forum, they tackle uncharted territory and emerging questions; they also take a new look at established debatesGincluding those about their own landmark works.Here, these well-known historians revisit key chapters in LincolnGs legacyGfrom Matthew Pinsker on LincolnGs private life and Jean Baker on religion and the Lincoln marriage to Geoffrey Perret on Lincoln as leader and Frank J. Williams on Lincoln and civil liberties in wartime.The eighteen original essays explore every corner of LincolnGs worldGreligion and politics, slavery and sovereignty, presidential leadership and the rule of law, the Second Inaugural Address and the assassination.In his 1947 classic, Lincoln Reconsidered, David Herbert Donald confronted the Lincoln myth. Today, the scholars in Lincoln Revisited give a new generation of students, scholars, and citizens the perspectives vital for understanding the constantly reinterpreted genius of Abraham Lincoln.

In celebration of the publication of The Union Preserved: A Guide to the Civil War Records in the New York State Archives, the New York State Archives Partnership Trust held a two-day symposium on New York's role in the Civil War. This title offers a compilation of the papers that were presented at the symposium.

The Union Preserved: A Guide to the Civil War Records in the New York State Archives is a comprehensive reference work that, for the first time, makes available to a wide public one of the most important and extensive Civil War resources in the nation: the collections of the New York State Archives and Records Administration.

The Emancipation Proclamation is responsible both for Lincoln's being hailed as the Great Emancipator and for his being pilloried by those who consider his once-radical effort at emancipation insufficient. Holzer examines the impact of Lincoln's announcement at the moment of its creation, and then as its meaning has changed over time.

Focusing on prints produced in Lincoln's lifetime and in the iconographically important months immediately following his death, this illustrated volume pairs original photographs and paintings with the prints made from them. It includes wartime cartoons, Lincoln family portraits and renderings of the moment of the shooting at Ford's Theatre.