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Lincoln Bicentennial Continues as Journalist Andrew Ferguson Presents Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America

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Savannah, GA – April 13, 2009.  The Georgia Historical Society and Savannah-Chatham County School System’s Teaching American History grant program invite you to attend a free lecture by journalist and author Andrew Ferguson as he discusses his critically acclaimed book, Land of Lincoln:  Adventures in Abe’s America, which focuses on the peculiar and often humorous ways in which people across this nation remember our sixteenth president. The lecture will be held on Thursday, May 7, 2009, at 7:00 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1 West Macon Street, on Madison Square in downtown Savannah. Copies of Ferguson’s book will be available for sale and a book-signing will follow the lecture.

As a child growing up in Illinois, Ferguson adored Abraham Lincoln and became a Lincoln buff. Though he eventually outgrew his obsession, his interest in Lincoln would resurface decades later after reading a curious headline in a local newspaper: “Lincoln Statue Stirs Outrage in Richmond.” Astonished by the idea that Lincoln could inspire such a reaction, Ferguson set off on a journey of discovery. Land of Lincoln is a mix of presidential biography and popular history in which Ferguson produces a hilarious yet poignant look at Lincoln and his place in America today. He encounters everything from hatred, to adoration, to opportunism and all manner of reaction in between. Described by critics as “brilliant and amusing, but also deeply moving,” Ferguson’s insights into our collective memory of this controversial leader are particularly timely in this bicentennial year of Lincoln’s birth.

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and has written for The New Yorker, the New Republic, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among many others.