num_pages: 317
description: In a masterly work, Garry Wills shows how Lincoln reached back to the Declaration of Independence to write the greatest speech in the nation’s history.The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead he gave the whole nation “a new birth of freedom” in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece.By examining both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world and to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.
language: English
title: Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
titlecomplete: Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
characters: Abraham Lincoln
genres: Biography, Presidents, History, Politics, American History, Historical, War, American Civil War, Nonfiction, Civil War
ratings_count: 8215
awards: awardedAt: 725875200000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: General Nonfiction, awardedAt: 725875200000
name: Benjamin Barondess Award, awardedAt: 725875200000
name: Ambassador Book Award
category: American Studies, awardedAt: 694252800000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Criticism, awardedAt: 694252800000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Nonfiction
publisher: Simon & Schuster (NYC)