Abraham Lincoln came to Gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery and to consecrate hallowed ground. In the course of three days many thousands had died there and the surrounding countryside had been transformed into a blighted landscape of death and destruction.... more
Our reading about Abraham Lincoln this summer anticipates the coming bicentennial of his birth next year. The world will most certainly be noting this event. And its companion anniversary--the birth of Charles Darwin on the exact same day in 1809.... more
"No other words could have done it. The miracle is that these words did. In his brief time before the crowd at Gettysburg he wove a spell that has not, yet, been broken—he called up a new nation out of the blood and trauma."
Garry Wills p.175
According to a relatively recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the amount of reading done for pleasure is down in this country...more from Provost Martin
Cornell’s next incoming class and much of the rest of the Cornell community will read Gary Wills’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America... more from Vice Provost Michele Moody-Adams
