Led by: Prof. Allen Guelzo (Princeton University)
Course Number: AMHI 641
Semesters: Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2021, Spring 2025
Image: A print depicting the Battle of Pea Ridge, published by Kurz and Allison, Chicago, 1889. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC00317.01)
This is a course of study in the most tragic conflict in the history of our nation, the Civil War. Not only does the Civil War contain all the elements of a national epic—the war of brother against brother, the idealism of the anti-slavery movement, the dramatic intensity of battles, surrenders, and even assassination—but its long-term legacies are still very much with us. The political and social struggles over which the Civil War was fought still await final resolution in our national life.
Coming soon
Allen C. Guelzo, Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar, Princeton University
Allen C. Guelzo is Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar and the director of the James Madison Program Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship. Previously, he was Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University, and the director of Civil War Era Studies and the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College. He is a three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize for Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999), Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (2004) and Gettysburg: The Last Invasion (2013). His recent works include Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment (2024) and Robert E. Lee: A Life (2021).
The views expressed in the course descriptions and lectures are those of the lead scholars.