Read in isolation, the Gettysburg Address in a highly-inspirational speech, speaking to generation after generation of Americans. But the speech is even more remarkable when seen in its historical context. Given the grim circumstances, and the national fatigue over the length of the war and the scope of the casualties, the speech had to do much political heavy lifting.

Dr. Boritt is the perfect person to make those challenging circumstances come alive. Born in Hungary during Soviet occupation, he has the outsider's appreciation of American history and privileges. As Director of the Civil War Institute in Gettysburg, he also has the local appreciation of the actual sacrifices made by the town, and by the soldiers who suffered in the aftermath of the horrible battle.

The book reports a very interesting scene just before Lincoln gave his stirring speech. Reporters gathered into the house where he was staying. He encouraged the nation's journalists to assist his efforts to sustain public support for the war. "The best course for the journals of the country to pursue, if they wished to sustain the Government," he suggested, "was to stand by the officers of the army." Instead of criticizing military blunders, the people should be urged to provide "all the aid in their power."

It is a pity that today's journalists would be impervious to such an appeal, and actually see it as their duty to do the exact opposite. Fortunately for President Lincoln, and for us, there were no Civil War books like Fiasco to demoralize the nation.

Dr. Gabor Boritt has now done twice what most historians hope to accomplish once in their academic careers. Gabor Boritt has made it possible for his readers to grasp the thoughts and ideas of one of the great Americans of all time. In his Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream and in his latest contribution The Gettysburg Gospel, Gabor Boritt has made it possible for all who are interested to understand the ideas and feelings of our 16th President. The first of the mentioned titles has become a classic among Lincoln titles, and I feel that The Gettysburg Gospel will also assume that position.

In his latest contribution Gabor Boritt has delivered a wonderful narrative on the events revolving around November 19, 1863. We witness the aftermath of the battle, the plans and beginnings of the National cemetery, the celebrations on the night prior to the dedication, and the ceremonies of that day now approaching its 143rd anniversary. Then Dr. Boritt relates to us how Lincoln's words were received by those in attendance and by those of his generation, but more importantly, The Gettysburg Gospel then goes on to relate how these words have been heard and interpreted by Americans and non-Americans over the last143 years.

It is a truly remarkable story made even more remarkable in the fact it is given to us by one who fled from the 1956 Hungarian uprising to come to a land whose government is "of the people, by the people, for the people,...".

This book was a pleasure for the lay-person to read. Bringing the speech to life, while altering commonly held misperceptions. Highly recommended to all levels of history buffs, and even those just looking for an enjoyable read.

Gabor Boritt's "The Gettysburg Gospel" is a stunning achievement. It is a superb history of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by a professional historian and masterful storyteller after a lifetime of exhaustive research. Boritt is at the top of his game.

The first chapter places the reader in the horror of Gettysburg immediately after the battle. Hundreds of books have been written about the Civil War and the battle of Gettysburg, but Boritt chooses the less well known "After Battle" to introduce us to this nightmare of time and place. No battlefield glory here. The hot July stench of rotting human and animal flesh that pervaded the town and for miles around; the anguish of soldiers' wives, fathers, and mothers opening grave after grave, searching for their loved ones; and the sadness of nurses and doctors caring for men, dying in agonizing pain, treated with hopelessly inadequate resources and nineteenth-century medicine are brought home with stark reality. Boritt notes that one exhausted nurse (Emily Souder, in a letter home) admitted that after an emotionally overwhelming day of work, she buried her head in her pillows so as to block out the cries of dying men, heard clearly through her bedroom window. Agony and despair were aplenty.

Lincoln came to Gettysburg to redirect America's vision toward the stars, to give ultimate meaning to suffering and dying. And Boritt tells the story remarkably well. His description of the dedication of Soldiers' National Cemetery and the delivery of Lincoln's address is meticulously researched, thoroughly referenced, and carefully reasoned. No wild claims here. The historian guides us through the myriad of assertions and differing remembrances so as to provide us a thoughtful account of Lincoln and his work at Gettysburg. Boritt's historical research will become the benchmark for all others. Exceptional.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was a superb piece of writing, much akin to political poetry. But with the end of the cemetery dedication, the history of the Address is only half told, and Boritt moves on skillfully to document how we the people recreated Lincoln's Address - in ways that the president probably never envisioned or intended. It seems that, for one reason or another, we need heroes and, in a sense, create them over and over again. In the decades after the Civil War, the martyred president achieved god-like status and his pronouncements became sacred words uttered from on high. Perhaps we needed a Lincoln myth in order to nation-build following the Civil War when "these united States" became "the United States." Perhaps we needed a hero to bind up the nation's wounds, to reconstruct North and South into one people. And perhaps there was a darker side. Perhaps nation and Lincoln myth were what held the vision of white America as it ignored the issue of race and failed to live out its "All men are created equal" creed for the next one hundred years. Boritt lays this all before us, gives us the history, the facts, and allows us to make our own judgments. Outstanding.

"The Gettysburg Gospel" is now the standard against which all other histories of the Gettysburg Address will be judged. This book should be read by every American.

Gabor Boritt is one of the nation's leading historians of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War; it is not hard to understand how he assumed this position when one reads a work as elegant and beautiful as The Gettysburg Gospel. In his latest book, Boritt nearly perfects the art of writing history as a narrative. What the reader encounters is a moving story that will engross one from Boritt's first sentences. We are introduced to the greatest man-made emergency in American history: the "uncertainty and dread" of the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg. Moving on from the detritus that litters the battlefield, the thousands of casualties, and the civilian lives which have been shattered forever, we read of the conception of the first National Cemetery and the process of assembling an appropriate ceremony in honor of those who gave "the last full measure of devotion." Relying on period newspapers and overlooked primary source materials, Boritt then assembles the story of Lincoln's journey to Gettysburg and the evening before the dedicatory ceremonies, November 18, 1863. Finally, "the big day" arrives, and Boritt transports us to that solemn day. But the story does not conclude with Lincoln's two minute appendix to the Emancipation Proclamation. Boritt returns us to the pages of the period newspapers, and the fruit of his extensive research in papers emanating from localities across the country is a cohesive and cogent analysis of the national response. Beyond the immediate response, however, Boritt looks at how the Gettysburg Address became revered as some of the most sacrosanct lines in American history, documenting and analyzing its role in American culture and memory since its utterance. The emotional climax of The Gettysburg Gospel comes with a short, yet beautifully written chapter entitled "Coda," which transports readers to another commemorative ceremony...this one in Lower Manhattan in 2002. Boritt packs an emotional punch with Governor Pataki's use of the Gettysburg Address at that ceremony as the consummate example of his underlying suggestion of the document as not only one that redefined Lincoln and the Civil War, but the document that continues to define us.

Boritt's writing style is unique and almost poetic in its elegance. Interpolating cogent analysis into his narrative, utilizing oft-forgotten primary sources to establish oft-forgotten details, and parsing Lincoln's words with several scientific and useful appendices, The Gettysburg Gospel is not only a valuable volume for anyone interested in the Civil War Era, but a must-read for any American who cares to know who we are. If anyone could near that definition, it was Lincoln. If anyone can tell us why, it is Gabor Boritt.