Lincoln's 200th

In continuing our dual themes of the week—the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth and President Obama and his inauguration—here's an interesting article from Salon about how Lincoln might vote if he were alive today. Michael Lind looks at how everyone, from Obama to the GOP, are aligning themselves with Lincoln and his politics today. He looks at Lincoln's views on issues from his era and makes reasonable assumptions of how the former president might feel about today's pressing issues—many of which aren't as different as you might think from those of Lincoln's era.

So are we all Lincolnians now? Maybe not. It's perfectly reasonable to ask what political movements and factions today would attract someone with Lincoln's political values. Lincoln was not King Arthur, living in a wholly alien society. Many of the issues of the mid-19th century—from the role of the federal government in the economy to whether America is a Christian nation to evolution vs. creationism—remain issues in the early 21st century.

Check out our new book, Lincoln's Veteran Volunteers Win the War, for additional reading on Lincoln's presidency as it related to four Union soldiers from the Hudson Valley and their "unflinching belief in home, family, country, and duty."

Author shares his Inauguration experience

SUNY Press author Dustin Ells Howes attended the Presidential Inauguration and was kind enough to share both his thoughts on the historic event and some of the photos he snapped that day. Dustin's new book, Toward a Credible Pacifism: Violence and the Possibilities of Politics, will be available in October.


I've followed politics for all of my life, and like a lot of political scientists that habit turned into my profession. One of the major questions of political science is the nature and character of power and one of the preeminent political theorists of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt argues (controversially) that power consists of people acting in concert. Arendt seems to suggest that "real" power is different from the actions of "the mob" or militaristic demonstrations carefully gauged to show deference to a single leader. Instead, she identifies power as drawing strength from plurality and difference, that it "appears" when people are together in public space and that it involves a degree of unpredictable creativity that we associate with freedom and liberty.

I have had a number of experiences where it seemed to me as though this kind of power was being exercised. However, none of those experiences quite compare to the sense of effectiveness I felt at President Obama's inauguration. American democracy has had its ups and downs. With the 2000 election only eight years past, one could be excused for being a skeptic of the Founders' system. And even when elections work properly, there are strong arguments in favor of the idea that Americans do not so much choose their leaders as choose from among a set of people who are acceptable to the "the real" powerbrokers.

From where we stood, I could not see Obama or even a jumbotron. So instead, we listened to and looked around at the people who were there. The inauguration was a moment that gathered together and expressed the relief, frustration and joy of an extraordinary breadth of people. The civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the women's movement, the hip-hop generation, church groups, college students, fiscal conservatives, curious people from around the world, soldiers, artists, scientists, and gay rights activists (who showed despite Rick Warren, but who didn't forget to turn away when he spoke). And of all these, most striking perhaps were the multi-generation families -- navigating with grandmother in a wheel chair through a crowd of thousands, with a 2 and 4 year old trailing just behind.

I expect that President Obama will disappoint a number of people who attended the inauguration, myself included, when he attempts to use violence to achieve things that are best achieved when the sort of power that brought him into office appears. However, I am encouraged in the thought that because of the long shot nature of his candidacy he will not soon forget what the power of the people can accomplish.

All photographs taken by Dustin Ells Howes.

D. Reid Ross in the Denver Post

Durango, Colorado resident and Lincoln's Veteran Volunteers Win the War author D. Reid Ross was interviewed in yesterday's Denver Post. Read the interview here.

Ross will be speaking at a series of upcoming events, all in the greater Boston area.

Saturday, February 14

The Lincoln Group

Bridgewater, MA

Monday, February 16

Cape Cod Civil War Roundtable

Yarmouth, MA

Thursday, February 19

Civil War Roundtable of Greater Boston

Waltham, MA

Lincoln's Veteran Volunteers Win the War

With this Thursday, February 12th marking the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, now is an appropriate time to read our new book, Lincoln's Veteran Volunteers Win the War. The book chronicles the Civil War experiences of four brothers from New York’s Hudson Valley. Author D. Reid Ross (grandson of one of the brothers) provides vivid descriptions of soldiers’ attitudes toward President Lincoln and emancipation, courage and performance on the battlefield, the hardships of army life, the role of the Veteran Volunteers, and the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. after the end of the war.

Edwin C. Bearss, author of Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War, said the book is a “A major breakthrough in Civil War history.”

D. Reid Ross is a retired urban planner and family historian and has published many articles on the American Civil War and his family’s history. The book was a true labor of love, for which Ross spent three decades researching. During that time he visited more than one hundred libraries, pored over hundreds of manuscript collections, and read more than one thousand Civil War and other historical publications, personal memoirs, diaries, and letters. Ross will participate in a number of celebratory events organized by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

For more on the journey that Ross took to research and write this highly personal book, read this interview with the author.

Explore the website for the Civil War Preservation Trust, where you can find links to a number of Civil War blogs and online communities.

Also check out the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission site for a comprehensive compendium of Lincoln bicentennial information and events.

AWP in the Windy City

Are you attending the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual meeting in Chicago? It runs from February 11–14 at the Hilton Chicago and we'll be there. Stop by and browse Excelsior Editions and SUNY Press titles on display at booth #115.

On Saturday, February 14 at 2:00 pm, we'll be celebrating the release of Where We Find Ourselves: Jewish Women around the World Write about Home, edited by Miriam Ben-Yoseph and Deborah Nodler Rosen, The Reason for Crows: A Story of Kateri Tekakwitha, by Diane Glancy and Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry, edited and translated by Tsipi Keller. All of the aforementioned authors and editors will be available to sign copies of their books.

Celebrate Black History Month

All month long at www.sunypress.edu we'll be featuring a selection of our titles in African and African American Studies. We'll try to feature a book or two from time to time on the blog as well, with links to the book page for more info. Today we have two for you: What's Wrong with Obamamania?, which explores the meteoric rise of Barack Obama with far-reaching—and disturbing—shifts in black leadership in post–Civil Rights America; and Go, Tell Michelle, our brand new collection of letters written by African American women to Michelle Obama.

Far out

Along with being a trippy homage to the old Roger Dean Yes album art, our new Mind, Body, Spirit e-catalog is also a fine place to explore our extensive collection of titles in yoga, new age, spirituality, tantra, Judaism, and the body, to name only a few.

Align your mind, body, and spirit today with a visit to our website to order a few choice titles from this colorful new catalog.