PROGRAM

Norton Garfinkle and Harold Holzer’s  A Just and Generous Nation: Abraham Lincoln and the Fight for American Opportunity presents a groundbreaking new account of the beliefs that inspired our sixteenth president to go to war when the Southern states seceded from the Union. Norton Garfinkle, chair of the Future of American Democracy Foundation and a member of the advisory board of Roosevelt House, and Harold Holzer, the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of Roosevelt House, will be in conversation with the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, to discuss why they argue that rather than a commitment to eradicating slavery or a defense of the Union, Lincoln’s guiding principle was the defense of equal economic opportunity.

The themes of A Just and Generous Nation resonate deeply during the 2016 presidential campaign, when income inequality and economic justice are being debated by candidates of both parties.