HAROLD HOLZER | LINCOLN SCHOLAR

HAROLD HOLZER, winner of The 2015 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize, is one of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. A prolific writer and lecturer, and frequent guest on television, Holzer served for six years (2010–2016) as Chairman of The Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. For the previous 10 years he co-chaired the U. S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC), appointed by President Clinton. President Bush awarded Holzer the National Humanities Medal in 2008. And in 2013, Holzer wrote an essay on Lincoln for the official program at the re-inauguration of President Obama. He is now chairman of The Lincoln Forum. bio continues here...

Special Announcement:
Be sure to watch Harold (who served as historical consultant and on-air commentator) in the CNN documentary series LINCOLN: DIVIDED WE STAND.

Harold delivers the annual oration at the Gettysburg National Soldiers' Cemetery on November 19, 2017—to mark the 154th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Photo: Henry Ballone.

Harold is on Twitter! Follow Harold for insights on Lincoln, updates on appearances, and general musings and behind-the-scenes photos.

Follow @haroldholzer

Upcoming Personal Appearances

2022
August 10 • Annual event at Daniel Chester French's studio, Chesterwood, Stockbridge, MA.
September 23 • Lincoln Conference, Carthage College, Kenosha, WI
September 28–29 • Opening of "Lincoln Memorial Illustrated" at Concord (MA) Museum
November 16–18 • Annual Lincoln Forum, Gettysburg

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	OUT NOW The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between The White House and the Media—From the Founding Fathers to Fake News Harold Holzer
"The FAKE NEWS media," Donald Trump has tweeted, "is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people." Never has our free press faced so great a threat. Yet the tension between presidents and journalists is as old as the republic itself. From George Washington to Trump, presidents have quarreled with, attacked, denigrated, and manipulated the fourth estate. Washington groused about his treatment in the newspapers, but his successor, John Adams, actually wielded his executive power to overturn press freedoms and prosecute critical reporters. Thomas Jefferson tapped a reporter to find dirt on his rival, Alexander Hamilton, only to have the reporter expose his own affair with his slave Sally Hemings. (Jefferson denied the reports out of hand—perhaps the first presidential cry of "fake news.") Andrew Jackson rewarded loyal newspapers with government contracts; Abraham Lincoln shuttered critical papers and imprisoned their editors without trial. FDR and JFK charmed journalists in order to protect their personal secrets, while Nixon cast the press as a public enemy for daring to investigate his own. In this remarkable new account, acclaimed scholar Harold Holzer guides readers through the clashes between chief executives and journalists, showing how these battles were waged and won, while girding us for a new fight to protect our nation’s greatest institution: a free and functioning press.

	Monument Man: The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French Harold Holzer
The artist who created the statue for the Lincoln Memorial, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) is America's best-known sculptor of public monuments. Monument Man is the first comprehensive biography of this fascinating figure and his illustrious career. Full of rich detail and beautiful archival photographs, Monument Man is a nuanced study of a preeminent artist whose evolution ran parallel to, and deeply influenced, the development of American sculpture, iconography, and historical memory.

	Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion Harold Holzer
Holzer shows us an activist Lincoln through journalists who covered him from his start through to the night of his assassination when one reporter ran to the box where Lincoln was shot and emerged to write the story covered with blood. In a wholly original way, Holzer shows us politicized newspaper editors battling for power, and a masterly president using the press to speak directly to the people and shape the nation.

	The Annotated Lincoln Edited by Harold Holzer and Thomas A. Horrocks
No American president before or since has faced the problems that confronted Abraham Lincoln when he took office in 1861. Nor has any president expressed himself with such eloquence on issues of great moment. Lincoln's writings reveal the depth of his thought and feeling and the sincerity of his convictions as he weighed the cost of freedom and preserving the Union. Now for the first time an annotated edition of Lincoln's essential writings examines the extraordinary man who produced them and explains the context in which they were composed.

	A Just and Generous Nation: Abraham Lincoln and the Fight for American Opportunity Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle
In A Just and Generous Nation, the eminent historian Harold Holzer and the noted economist Norton Garfinkle present a groundbreaking new account of the beliefs that inspired our sixteenth president to go to war when the Southern states seceded from the Union. Rather than a commitment to eradicating slavery or a defense of the Union, they argue, Lincoln's guiding principle was the defense of equal economic opportunity. Read reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post.