To fully understand and appreciate Abraham Lincoln's legacy, it is important to examine the society that influenced the life, character, and leadership of the man who would become the Great Emancipator. Editors Joseph R. Fornieri and Sara Vaughn Gabbard have done just that in Lincoln's America: 1809-1865, a collection of new and original essays by ten eminent historians that place Lincoln within his nineteenth-century cultural context.
Joseph R. Fornieri is a professor of political science at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the director of the Center for Statesmanship, Law, and Liberty. He is the author or editor of five books, the most recent of which is Abraham Lincoln, Philosopher Statesman (SIU Press), which won a prize for superior scholarship from the Illinois State Historical Society.