Michael Burlingame: “Lincoln’s Emotional Life”

Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 7:30pm

Kennedy Hall, Call Auditorium

When Michael Burlingame’s 2,024-page biography of Lincoln was published in 2008, it was hailed by critics as “definitive” and “magisterial.” “Burlingame may know more about Lincoln and his era than anyone in the world,” declared Time magazine’s Lev Grossman. James Swanson of the New York Review of Books concurred: “Burlingame’s Lincoln comes alive as the author unfolds vast amounts of new research while breathing new life into familiar stories…. Future Lincoln books cannot be written without it, and from no other book can a general reader learn so much about Abraham Lincoln.”

In this talk, which begins the free summer lecture series sponsored by the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions, Burlingame will examine Lincoln’s relationships with those closest to him—his parents, children, and wife—and will also explore Lincoln’s midlife crisis and the psychological origins of his hatred of slavery.

Burlingame holds the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He is the author of many books and articles about Lincoln and the winner of numerous awards, including the Abraham Lincoln Association Book Prize (1996), the Lincoln Diploma of Honor from Lincoln Memorial University (1998), and the 2010 Lincoln Prize, sponsored by the Gilder-Lehrman Institute for American History and Gettysburg College.