Elizabeth R. Varon Wins Lincoln Prize for “Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War”

Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute announced that Elizabeth R. Varon, author of Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War (Oxford University Press), is the recipient of the 2020 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute:

Varon’s 500-page Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War anchors the Civil War narrative in the defining moments that occurred on the battlefield, while simultaneously integrating the social and military history of the time period.

“Armies of Deliverance is the defining history of the Civil War for the next generation, written by one of the leading Civil War authors of our time,” says James G. Basker, President of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

“Varon finds a fresh interpretation of familiar events in the concept of ‘deliverance,’ an understanding of the war that fused religious, political, economic, and moral determination,” wrote the jury in their report to the board. “Varon’s mastery of every aspect of the Civil War makes this the most complete, balanced, and up-to-date synthesis of the nation’s defining conflict.”

The seven other finalists that the jury selected from 110 submissions include: Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (W.W. Norton and Company); Matthew Fox-Amato, Exposing Slavery: Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America (Oxford University Press); Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (Yale University Press); W. Caleb McDaniel, Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America (Oxford University Press); Jessie Morgan-Owens, Girl in Black and White: The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement (W.W. Norton and Company); Joseph P. Reidy, Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery (University of North Carolina Press); and David Silkenat, Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press).

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