In 1959, Harry Jaffa published Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Four hundred pages of close textual analysis, biography and political philosophy, the book transformed the scholarly understanding of Lincoln, placing the prairie lawyer on a level with Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton and the other Founders.
Marking the 50th anniversary of the book's appearance, the University of Chicago Press has just published a new edition. "Crisis of the House Divided," writes Andrew Ferguson, who has also written a volume about Lincoln, "is a book that will never die -- a genuine landmark in American thought. It is the greatest Lincoln book ever."
Bio
Harry Jaffa
Harry V. Jaffa, a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute, is the author of numerous articles and books, including his widely acclaimed study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (University of Chicago Press, 1959).
Jaffa is Professor Emeritus of Government at Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Graduate School. He received his B.A. from Yale, where he majored in English, in 1939, and holds a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research.
Peter Robinson
Peter M. Robinson is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he writes about business and politics, edits the Hoover Institution's quarterly journal, the Hoover Digest, and hosts Hoover's television program, "Uncommon Knowledge."
Robinson is also the author of three books: How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life; It's My Party: A Republican's Messy Love Affair with the GOP; and the best-selling business book Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA.
Series of seven debates between Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln and Democratic Sen. Stephen A. Douglas in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign. They focused on slavery and its extension into the western territories. Lincoln criticized Douglas for his support of popular sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, while Douglas accused Lincoln of advocating racial equality and disruption of the Union. Douglas won reelection, but Lincoln's antislavery position and oratorical brilliance made him a national figure in the young Republican Party.