IN THE NEWS

From The New York Times (May 11, 2009)
50 Years In, Lincoln Center’s Name Is Still a Mystery
And so, this Monday morning, let us celebrate the Great Emancipator himself, Abraham Lincoln, who gave his name to Lincoln Center, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of its groundbreaking with an artistic and political extravaganza in the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall starting at 10:30 a.m. Not. Or, well, perhaps... [read more]

From The New York Times (January 19, 2009)
Ask About Lincoln in New York
Harold Holzer, the author of several books on Abraham Lincoln and the historian for the upcoming New-York Historical Society exhibition, "Lincoln and New York," answered selected readers? questions about Abraham Lincoln?s experiences in New York, where he gave the Cooper Union speech that advanced his 1860 presidential campaign, stopped on his way to his 1861 inauguration, and lay in state, at City Hall, following his assassination in 1865... [read more]

From The Huffington Post (January 18, 2009)
7 Days in America: Lesson from Lincoln's Transition & Inaugural
Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer shares the parallels between one lanky Illinois legislator / president-elect and another. Think about it: without Lincoln, no emancipation proclamation, no Obama... and no United States of America... [read more]

From CNN (January 17, 2009)
Commentary: The real ties between Lincoln and Obama
They are big shoes to fill by any standard, political or historical. Pointing to his oversize, specially made boots, Abraham Lincoln once confided that he may have been slow to put his foot down, but once he did, he never went back.... [read more]

From Forbes Magazine (January 15, 2009)
What Barack Obama Can (And Can't) Learn From Abraham Lincoln
How did Lincoln craft two of the greatest inaugural addresses of all time, and how can Obama, already a remarkable orator, rise to that level? What can Obama learn about facing a national economic crisis from the president who confronted the crisis of war within our borders? Why is the "team of rivals" comparison between Obama and Lincoln an exaggeration at best? No one is better equipped to answer such questions than Harold Holzer... [read more]

From City Hall News (October 10, 2008)
Holzer Presents His Memo to the President-Elect, Vintage 1860
by David Giambusso
On the subject of Abraham Lincoln, Harold Holzer-like Lincoln himself-is largely self-taught. In fact, Holzer remembers that his Civil War professor at CUNY did not even like him. "I decided then that I wasn't going to be a history academic. I was going to get into it my own way," he said... [read more]

From The New York Times (February 28, 2007)
One Night Only. Gingrich vs. Cuomo in Elevated Discourse
By Sam Roberts
On Feb. 27, 1860, a “large and enthusiastic assemblage” of 1,500 or so actually paid to hear a relatively obscure and recently defeated United States Senate candidate from the Midwest audition for the presidency... [ read more]

From the Los Angeles Times (December 29, 2006)
Lincoln: Focus On the Real Foe
By Harold Holzer
How would four of the greatest war leaders in history have handled Iraq? President Bush has often cited Lincolnian resolve to justify staying the course in Iraq. He takes inspiration from the knowledge that Abraham Lincoln too endured failure, frustration and dissent, not to mention more American casualties on a single day at Antietam than we've lost in all four years in Iraq. Yet Lincoln still persuaded the North to persevere "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword." [read more]

From Schenectady Daily Gazette (April 1, 2006)
Lincoln Expert Fond of N.Y. Politics.
By Bill Buell - The Daily Gazette
Having authored, co-written or edited 24 books on Abraham Lincoln, Harold Holzer, it can be assumed, knows quite a lot about our nation’s 16th president and his close associates, including New Yorker and Union College grad William Seward, his secretary of state... [read more]

From Albany Times Union (April 11, 2006)
Author is given a key to city.
Harold Holzer, who serves as senior vice president of external affairs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, recently received a key to the city of Schenectady.

Holzer is the author of dozens of magazine articles and books about Abraham Lincoln.

He was the recipient of the coveted Lincoln Prize for his 1995 book "lincoln at Cooper Union: the Speech that made Abraham Lincoln President."

Mayor Brian Stratton presented Holzer with the key during Holzer's appearance as part of Union College's lecture series at the Nott Memorial on the campus.

From The Journal News (June 27, 2004)
The Courtier of New York
By GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Writer Andrew Solomon fondly recalls the time he shared with Harold Holzer and Bill Clinton in the Lincoln Bedroom... [read more]

From The New York Times (April 8, 2004)
Sam Waterston, the star of the NBC drama "Law & Order"...[read more]

Reviews

From The Seattle Times (October 30,2008)
Looking back at Lincoln's life and leadership
By STEVE RAYMOND
In "Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860–61" (Simon & Schuster, 595 pp., $30), Holzer, a Lincoln scholar with a distinguished list of titles to his credit, provides an unprecedentedly detailed look at Lincoln's activities during that crucial period, when the nation held its breath while Southern states seceded from the Union. Under enormous pressure to say or do something in response to the crisis, Lincoln abstained because, as president-elect, he still lacked authority. But he kept busy; office seekers badgered him around the clock, potential Cabinet appointees vied continually for his favor and in rare private moments the exhausted Lincoln scribbled notes that eventually found their way into his inaugural address.

Holzer offers a day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour account of Lincoln's life during this time, including some nice human touches: Lincoln never did learn to spell "inaugural" correctly, and on the morning of his inauguration ceremony he forgot to pay his bill when he checked out of his Washington, D.C., hotel.

This is a superb book, impeccably researched and entertainingly written. [read more]

From Publishers Weekly (July 28, 2008)
Nonfiction Reviews
Even the most committed of Lincoln's fans have sometimes questioned his actions in the four months between his 1860 election and his inauguration: a period when seven states seceded from the Union. In an engrossing narrative, Holzer (Lincoln at Cooper Union), chairman of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, painstakingly retraces Lincoln's few public statements and numerous private initiatives during this key period, revealing an astute political operator assessing the situation, organizing his government, reaching out to the South "and most of all, "[drawing] a line in the sand to prevent the spread of human slavery." Holzer shows Lincoln shrewdly and methodically manipulating friend and foe alike, while also taking the first cautious steps toward preparing both himself and his country for a grim trial by fire. [read more]

From The Journal News (June 27, 2004)
Lincoln: A figure of speech
By GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
"For all of its universally acknowledged importance, Lincoln's Cooper Union address has for years enjoyed a peculiar reputation," Harold Holzer writes. "It is widely understood to have somehow propelled Lincoln to the presidency. Yet it has been virtually ignored by generations of historians, most of whom have relegated it to the status of exalted footnote."...[read more]

Civil War Book Review
Frank J Williams reviews Harold Holzer's Lincoln at Cooper Union
The time is February, the year, 1860, a Presidential year. The country is dividing, North and South, over the issue of slavery. People are migrating westward into the territories on the Great Plains, and the burning question is whether some are to be held as property in the new land...[more]

Lincoln at Cooper Union:The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President
By Harold Holzer
Review by Steven E. Woodworth, TownHall.com
Harold Holzer's latest gem of a book examines the circumstances, meaning, and consequences
of one of Abraham Lincoln's most important speeches. The speech that Lincoln gave
at Cooper Union in...[read more]

Press Releases

The Civil War Round Table of New York Presents The Barondess/Lincoln Award For 2008 to Craig Symonds and a Special Barondess/Lincoln Bicentennial Prize to Harold Holzer
On February 4, 2009, the Civil War Round Table of New York, in its 58th year of continuous operation, presented the prestigious BARONDESS/LINCOLN AWARD for the 48th consecutive year to Dr. Craig Symonds, prize-winning author and professor emeritus at the United States Naval Academy, and a Special Barondess/Lincoln Bicentennial Prize to Harold Holzer, one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. Read the entire press release.

Read the press release issued by the National Endowment for the Humanities announcing Harold Holzer as a 2008 National Humanities Medal recipient.

From National Endowment For Humanities (September 9, 2004)
HAROLD HOLZER TO DELIVER ENDOWMENT'S "HEROES OF HISTORY" LECTURE AT FORD'S THEATRE Noted author and lecturer is co-chairman of Lincoln Bicentennial Commission...[read more]

Read the press release issued by Simon & Schuster in April 2004 to officially
announce the publication of Harold Holzer's Lincoln at Cooper Union.

Videos

From CBS NEWS (January 18, 2009)
Lincoln And Obama Links
Two presidential historians—Harold Holzer and Douglas Brinkley—sat down with CBS News to describe the political parallels and differences between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln.

Harold Holzer: Transitions—Lincoln/FDR/Obama
Originally Posted November 30, 2008
The time between the election of a president and his taking office presents the challenge of incipient responsibility without direct power. At a time as difficult as the ones faced by Lincoln and FDR, President-Elect Obama will learn from the history of his predecessors.

Book TV: "Why Was Lincoln Murdered"
Originally Posted January 27, 2009
A panel of authors who have written books about President Lincoln debate the circumstances surrounding his assassination at the 10th Annual Lincoln Forum Symposium in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The panelists inlcude, James Swanson, author of "Manhunt," Michael Kauffman, author of "American Brutus," Louise Taper, author of "Right or Wrong God Judge Me: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth," Edward Steers, the editor of "The Trial," Thomas Reed Turner, author of "Beware the People Weeping," and Frank Williams, the Chairman of The Lincoln Forum. The panel is moderated by Harold Holzer, Vice Chairman of The Lincoln Forum.