Guelzo, Allen C. 1953–

(Allen Carl Guelzo)

PERSONAL: Born February 2, 1953, in Yokohama, Japan; son of Carl Martin Jr. and Leila (Kerrigan) Guelzo; married Debra K. Hotchkiss, June 27, 1981; children: Jerusha, Alexandra, Jonathan. Education: University of Pennsylvania, M.A., Ph.D., 1986; Philadelphia Theological Seminary, M.Div.

ADDRESSES: Home—526 Foxwood Ln., Paoli, PA 19301-2009. Office—Gettysburg College, Campus Box 0413, 300 North Washington St., Gettysburg, PA 17325. Agent—Michele Rubin, Writer's House, Inc., 21 E. 26th St., New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Eastern College, St. Davids, PA, Grace F. Kea Professor of American History, beginning 1991, dean of Templeton Honors College, beginning 1998; Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA, currently Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and Professor of History. Visiting fellow, Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1992–93; fellow, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University, 1994–95. Board of directors member, Abraham Lincoln Institute of the Mid-Atlantic; advisory board member, Knox College, Lincoln Studies Center; member, Easttown Township Planning Commission, c. 2000; member, Union League of Philadelphia.

MEMBER: American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, Abraham Lincoln Association (member of board of directors).

AWARDS, HONORS: Choice Award, American Library Association, 1989, for Edwards on the Will; National Endowment for the Humanities grant, 1990–91; American Council of Learned Societies fellowship, 1991–92; American Philosophical Society grant, 1992; F.B. Artz grant, Oberlin College, 1992; Albert C. Outler Prize, American Society of Church History, 1994; Lincoln Prize, Lincoln and Soldiers' Institute, 2000, for Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, 2005, for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America; Book Prize, Abraham Lincoln Institute of the Mid-Atlantic, 2000, for Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, 2005, for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Honorary doctorate, Lincoln College.

WRITINGS:

(With Timothy Clark Lemmer) Making God's Word Plain: One Hundred and Fifty Years in the History of Tenth Presbyterian, edited by James Montgomery Boice, The Church (Philadelphia, PA), 1979.

(Editor) Ambitious to be Well-Pleasing: A Festschrift for the Centennial of the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church, 1886/87–1986/87, foreword by Jay Adams, postscript by Joni Eareckson Tada, Reformed Episcopal Publication Society: Trinity Foundation (Philadelphia, PA), 1986.

Edwards on the Will: A Century of American Philosophical Debate, 1750–1850, Wesleyan University Press (Middletown, CT), 1989.

(Editor) Manning Ferguson Force, From Fort Henry to Corinth, reprint edition, Broadfoot Publishing (Wilmington, NC), 1989.

For the Union of Evangelical Christendom: The Irony of the Reformed Episcopalians, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1994.

The Crisis of the American Republic: A History of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1995.

(Editor) Josiah Gilbert Holland, Life of Abraham Lincoln, reprint edition, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1998.

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1999.

(Editor, with Sang Hyun Lee) Edwards in Our Time: Jonathan Edwards and the Shaping of American Religion, Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1999.

(With Gary W. Gallagher and Patrick N. Allitt) The History of the United States (sound recording), second edition, Teaching (Chantilly, VA), 2003.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to books, including Jonathan Edwards's Writings: Text, Context, and Interpretation, edited by Stephen J. Stein, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1996; The Civil War: A Research Handbook, edited by Steven E. Woodworth, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1996; New Horizons in American Religious History, edited by H. S. Stout and D.G. Hart, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998; The Evangelical Engagement with Science, edited by David Livingston and Mark A. Noll, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1999; The Human Tradition in the Civil War and Reconstruction, edited by Steven E. Woodworth, Scholarly Resources (Wilmington, DE), 1999; The Lincoln Enigma, edited by Gabor Boritt, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2001; and Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia: 175 Years of Thinking and Acting Biblically, edited by Philip Graham Ryken, P & R (Phillipsburg, NJ), 2004. Contributor to encyclopedias, and of articles and reviews to academic journals, including Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of the History of Ideas, Anglican and Episcopal History, and William and Mary Quarterly.

ADAPTATIONS: Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President has been made into a recorded book by Blackstone Audio Books, c. 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Historian Allen C. Guelzo is best known for his works on American history, many of which are about his favorite subject, President Abraham Lincoln. Holding a master's degree in divinity, in addition to his history degrees, he has also written books on philosophy and theology, most notably on American theologian Jonathan Edwards. One of these works, Edwards in Our Time: Jonathan Edwards and the Shaping of American Religion. is a book he edited with Sang Hyun Lee. David Bebbington, in a Journal of Ecclesiastical History review, noted that "the essays represent a dialogue between the voice of the theologian and the present day." Beggington went on to comment on the author's own contribution to the volume, writing that it "perceptively reveals the differences between Edwards on the free will debate and subsequent writings on the subject."

Guelzo has earned awards for his books about Lincoln. In Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, the author delves into everything from Lincoln's initial forays into politics to his presidency and assassination. Noting that there has been a glut of books about Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Schwarz, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, commented that the author's biography "is quite simply the best book on Lincoln to be published in a generation." Schwarz went on to note: "It treats every aspect of its subject's public and private life with intelligence and penetration … but this is primarily a study of Lincoln's ideas and outlook." The reviewer concluded that the book is a "masterpiece."

Guelzo once again turned his attention to Lincoln in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. Since the early years after Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation, debate has focused on the importance of the proclamation, with many thinking that it had little effect on the state or idea of slavery in the United States and that it reveals an unwillingness on Lincoln's part to take on the slavery issue in full. In his book, Guelzo sets out his case for the proclamation being the foundation of the destruction of American slavery and, contrary to some beliefs, a risky political move.

George McKenna, writing in First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, commented that the author "lays out his case methodically," adding that Guelzo reveals "Lincoln's underlying principles, then the way he applied them in the rapidly shifting landscape between 1861 and 1865." McKenna also noted that "Guelzo presents a well-documented account of a president who stretched his powers as far as the Constitution and the climate of the times permitted in order to set the nation on a course leading to what he had hoped for many years earlier: the 'ultimate extinction' of slavery. I do not know whether that is still taught in our public schools. Guelzo makes a persuasive case that it should be." Silvana R. Siddali, writing in the Journal of Southern History, commented: "The overarching theoretical framework for this book rests on the author's use of the eighteenth-century definition of good statesmanship." The reviewer later added: "One of the book's most significant contributions is its methodology. Guelzo weaves a close reading of primary sources with a meticulous retelling of historical narrative. He insists throughout on a strict nineteenth-century understanding of the scope, purpose, and power of public documents such as proclamations and public letters." In a review in the Christian Century, Ronald C. White, Jr., wrote that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation "leads us into contested territory." Calling the author "a guide who can be trusted to navigate fairly a whole series of questions and issues," White concluded: "This book, and the story it tells with great erudition, deserves a wide reading."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlantic Monthly, June, 2003, Benjamin Schwarz, review of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, p. 88.

Christian Century, October 19, 2004, Ronald C. White, Jr., review of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, p. 58.

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, June-July, 2004, George McKenna, review of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, p. 49.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, October, 2001, David Bebbington, review of Edwards in Our Time: Jonathan Edwards and the Shaping of American Religion, p. 762.

Journal of Southern History, May, 2005, Silvana R. Siddali, review of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, p. 468.