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The Gettysburg Address

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address of 1863, one of the most influential statements of national purpose.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, ten sentences long, delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg after the Union forces had won an important battle with the Confederates. Opening with " Four score and seven years ago," it became one of the most influential statements of national purpose, asserting that America was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" and "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Among those inspired were Martin Luther King Jr whose "I have a dream" speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial 100 years later, echoed Lincoln's opening words.

With

Catherine Clinton
Denman Chair of American History at the University of Texas and International Professor at Queen's University, Belfast

Susan-Mary Grant
Professor of American History at Newcastle University

And

Tim Lockley
Professor of American History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Available now

49 minutes

Last on

Thu 26 May 2016 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

READING LIST:

Gabor Boritt, The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech that Nobody Knows (Simon & Schuster, 2006)

Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A life of Purpose and Power (Knopf Publishing Group, 2006)

Sean Conant (ed.), The Gettysburg Address: Perspectives on Lincoln鈥檚 Greatest Speech (Oxford University Press, 2015)

Martin P. Johnson, Writing the Gettysburg Address (University Press of Kansas, 2013)

Carla Knorowski (ed.), Gettysburg Replies: The World Responds to Abraham Lincoln鈥檚 Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, 2015)

Jared Peatman, The Long Shadow of Lincoln鈥檚 Gettysburg Address (Southern Illinois University Press, 2013)

Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (Simon & Schuster, 1992)

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Melvyn Bragg
Interviewed Guest Catherine Clinton
Interviewed Guest Susan-Mary Grant
Interviewed Guest Tim Lockley
Producer Simon Tillotson

Broadcasts

  • Thu 26 May 2016 09:00
  • Thu 26 May 2016 21:30

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