Walter Edgar's Journal

Lincoln’s unfinished work - the new birth of Freedom from generation to generation

Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio

Anthony Berger

In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln promised that the nation’s sacrifices during the Civil War would lead to a “new birth of freedom.” Lincoln’s Unfinished Work: The New Birth of Freedom from Generation to Generation (2022, LSU Press) analyzes how the United States has attempted to realize—or subvert—that promise over the past century and a half. The volume is not solely about Lincoln, or the immediate unfinished work of Reconstruction, or the broader unfinished work of America coming to terms with its tangled history of race; it investigates all three topics.

Editors Vernon Burton and Peter Eisenstadt talk with Walter Edgar about the wide-ranging ideas explored in this volume.

News and Music Stations: Fri, Feb 03, 12 pm; Sat, Feb 04, 7 am
News & Talk Stations: Fri, Feb 03, 12 pm; Sun, Feb 05, 4 pm

Stay Connected
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.