Civil War Historian McPherson To Deliver Harrison Lecture

March 26, 2008

Bowling Green, Ky. - How Abraham Lincoln defined his role as commander in chief during his presidency will be the subject of a free public lecture by James M. McPherson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has been recently identified as the greatest living authority on the Civil War. 
           
Professor McPherson will deliver his lecture on Friday, April 4, at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Mass Media and Technology Hall on Western Kentucky University’s main campus in Bowling Green.
           
The title of Professor McPherson’s lecture is “Tried by War:  Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief.”  Sponsored by WKU’s Department of History, the lecture is part of the annual Harrison Distinguished Lecture series. The event, which has been endorsed by WKU’s Center for the Study of the Civil War in the West, marks the beginning of WKU’s celebration of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.
           
James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of American History Emeritus at Princeton University, where he taught for more than 30 years.  During his career, McPherson has written 15 books, mostly focusing on the American Civil War and Reconstruction.
           
In 1989, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his bestselling “Battle Cry of Freedom,” a one-volume history of the Civil War.  His most recent book is “The Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War” (2007), which Publishers Weeklyhas called a “strong addition to the massive Civil War canon.”
           
McPherson served as a consultant on Ken Burns’ PBS documentary “The Civil War” (1989) and on the film “Gettysburg" (Turner Pictures, 1993).

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For more information, contact Robert Dietle, (270) 745-3841.