Revivalism has always been an important strain in American Protestantism. At times it has been the dominant influence. Often perceived as a home-grown movement, revivalism actually originated in England and has thrived in both countries with the help of two centuries of intellectual cross-pollination. This book focuses on English and American evangelicals during the early and mid-nineteenth century. Examining, first, American revivalism in the crucial state of its development, from the 1790s to the 1840s - when evangelicals used their most aggressive conversion techniques - it goes on to show the significant effects these developments had on the English revival movement. The revival tradition ultimately became orthodoxy in America; in Britain, however, it failed ever to achieve real respectability. Transatlantic Revivalism examines this contrast. It shows how attitudes and institutions in Britain prevented the flowering of an American style revivalism; conversely, particular American conditions allowed Methodism, which in England exerted only limited influence on Protestantism, to become the largest and most thoroughly revivalistic of all Protestant denominations. Church historians have often under-emphasized or deliberately ignored evangelical life; its emotionalism, disorder, and impropriety were an embarrassment to them. More recent historical scholarship has been primarily interested in tracing the secular implications of revivalism. This study focuses on those major evangelical denominations, particularly the Methodists, which in both countries provided the primary expression of evangelicalism and which gave it its cutting edge.

The focus of this book is on English and American evangelicals during the early and mid-19th century, examining the effect of aggressive conversion techniques used by American evangelicals upon the English revival movement.

Interest in the American Civil War and the role of Abraham Lincoln has grown dramatically in the last decade. Leader of the anti-slavery Republican coalition and the wartime Union, he has become a model of a particular kind of democratic politician who led rather than followed. Richard J. Carwardine examines Lincoln's rise to power and his achievements as US president. The book explores the wider sources of Lincoln's authority and skills in embracing a broad range of elements within the Republican party. In particular, it looks at Lincoln's shrewd relationship with evangelical Protestantism. His ability to harness and channel the power of the Protestant constituency was key to his winning the presidency and rallying support behind his national and emancipatory vision.

Perhaps more than any other American, Abraham Lincoln has become a global figure, one who spoke--and continues to speak--to people across the world. Karl Marx judged Lincoln "the single-minded son of the working class"; Tolstoy reported his fame in the Caucasus; Tomas Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, drew strength as "the Lincoln of Central Europe"; racially-mixed, republican "Lincoln brigades" fought in the Spanish Civil War; and, more recently, statesmen ranging from Gordon Brown to Pervez Musharraf to Barack Obama have invoked Lincoln in support of their respective agendas.
This fascinating volume brings together leading historians from around the world to explore Lincoln's international legacy. The authors examine the meaning and image of Lincoln in many places and across continents, ranging from Germany to Japan, India to Ireland, Africa and Asia to Argentina and the American South. The book reveals that at the heart of Lincoln's global celebrity were his political principles, his record of successful executive leadership in wartime, his role as the "Great Emancipator," and his resolute defense of popular government. Yet the "Global Lincoln" has been a malleable and protean figure, one who is forever being redefined to meet the needs of those who invoke him.
The first study of Lincoln's global legacy, this book tells the unknown and remarkable story of the world-wide impact of one of America's great presidents.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to make storytelling, jokes, and laughter tools of the office, and his natural sense of humor has become legendary. Lincoln's Sense of Humor registers the variety, complexity of purpose, and ethical dimension of Lincoln's humor and pinpoints the political risks Lincoln ran in telling jokes while the nation was engaged in a bloody struggle for existence. Complete with amusing anecdotes, this book shows how Lincoln's uses of humor evolved as he matured and explores its versatility, range of expressions, and multiple sources: western tall tales, morality stories, bawdy jokes, linguistic tricks, absurdities, political satire, and sharp wit. While Lincoln excelled at self-mockery, nothing gave him greater pleasure than satirical work lampooning hypocrisy and ethical double standards. He particularly enjoyed David R. Locke's satiric writings by Petroleum V. Nasby, a fictional bigoted secessionist preacher, and the book explores the nuances of Lincoln's enthusiasm for what he called Locke's genius, showing the moral springs of Lincoln's humor. Richard Carwardine methodically demonstrates that Lincoln's funny stories were the means of securing political or personal advantage, sometimes by frontal assault on opponents but more often by depiction through parable, obfuscation through hilarity, refusal through wit, and diversion through cunning. Throughout his life Lincoln worked to develop the humorist's craft and hone the art of storytelling. His jokes were valuable in advancing his careers as politician and lawyer and in navigating his course during a storm-tossed presidency. His merriness, however, coexisted with self-absorbed contemplation and melancholy. Humor was his lifeline; dark levity acted as a tonic, giving Lincoln strength to tackle the severe challenges he faced. At the same time, a reputation for unrestrained, uncontrollable humor gave welcome ammunition to his political foes. In fact, Lincoln's jocularity elicited waves of criticism during his presidency. He was dismissed as a "smutty joker," a "first rate second rate man," and a "joke incarnated." Since his death, Lincoln's anecdotes and jokes have become detached from the context that had given them their political and cultural bite, losing much of the ironic and satiric meaning that he had intended. With incisive analysis and laugh-inducing examples, Carwardine helps to recapture a strong component of Lincoln's character and reanimates the good humor of our sixteenth president.

Though not blind to Abraham Lincoln's imperfections, Black Americans long ago laid a heartfelt claim to his legacy. At the same time, they have consciously reshaped the sixteenth president's image for their own social and political ends. Frederick Hord and Matthew D. Norman's anthology explores the complex nature of views on Lincoln through the writings and thought of Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, Gwendolyn Brooks, Barbara Jeanne Fields, Barack Obama, and dozens of others. The selections move from speeches to letters to book excerpts, mapping the changing contours of the bond--emotional and intellectual--between Lincoln and Black Americans over the span of one hundred and fifty years. A comprehensive and valuable reader, Knowing Him by Heart examines Lincoln's still-evolving place in Black American thought.

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 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. The book opens with an essay by Richard Carwardine, who explores Lincoln's distinctive sense of humor. Later in the volume, Stephen Kantrowitz examines the limitations of Lincoln's Native American policy, while James W. Loewen discusses how textbooks regularly downplay the sixteenth president's antislavery convictions. Lawrence T. McDonnell looks at the role of poor Blacks and whites in the disintegration of the Confederacy. Eric Foner provides an overview of the Constitution-shattering impact of the Civil War amendments. Essays by J. William Harris and Jerald Podair examine the fate of Lincoln's ideas about land distribution to freedpeople. Gregory P. Downs focuses on the structural limitations that Republicans faced in their efforts to control racist violence during Reconstruction. Adrienne Petty and Mark Schultz argue that Black land ownership in the post-Reconstruction South persisted at surprisingly high rates. Rhondda Robinson Thomas examines the role of convict labor in the construction of Clemson University, the site of the conference from which this book evolved. Other essays look at events in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Randall J. Stephens analyzes the political conservatism of white evangelical Christianity. Peter Eisenstadt uses the career of Jackie Robinson to explore the meanings of integration. Joshua Casmir Catalano and Briana Pocratsky examine the debased state of public history on the airwaves, particularly as purveyed by the History Channel. Gavin Wright rounds out the volume with a striking political and economic analysis of the collapse of the Democratic Party in the South. Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a far-reaching, thought-provoking exploration of the unfinished work of democracy, particularly as it pertains to the legacy of slavery and white supremacy in America.