112: Lincoln and the Fight for Peace with John Avlon
The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project
4.6 • 9.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2022
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Host Reed Galen is joined by John Avlon (Author and Senior Political Analyst/Anchor at CNN) to discuss how Abraham Lincoln’s character informed his commitment to an unconditional surrender from the Confederacy, how even though Lincoln was surrounded by reactionaries and radicals…he maintained the notion that there was more that united American than divides them, and how peace needs to be waged with the same intensity as war. Plus, how the wisdom of Lincoln and the founding fathers can be applied to the present moment for which our nation finds itself. Be sure to pick up John’s latest book Lincoln and the Fight for Peace at your favorite book retailer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone. As we get deeper into 2022, it is time for all of us to do our part, to save |
| 0:06.5 | democracy and to show that America can and will stay on that arc of bending history towards justice. |
| 0:13.8 | I want you to go to jointheunion.us and sign up to help our grassroots efforts. |
| 0:20.3 | Fill out the survey. Tell us where it is you want to help. We'll put you in touch with the people |
| 0:25.0 | who can put you to work. Join theunion.us. Do your part. And now on with the show. |
| 0:40.1 | Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Rhea Gelen. Today, I'm joined by John |
| 0:45.8 | Avla, Senior Political Analyst and Anchor at CNN. He is an award-winning columnist and is the |
| 0:50.9 | author of numerous books, including his latest work, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace. You can |
| 0:55.3 | find it at your finest local bookstore. Previously, John was the editor-in-chief and managing director |
| 1:00.5 | of the Daily Beast and served as chief speechwriter for the mayor of New York during the attacks of |
| 1:04.9 | 9-11. John has a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Columbia. John's wife and I also go |
| 1:10.8 | back a long way. I can tell you that I look like I do now and have a face for radio and Margaret |
| 1:15.6 | looks exactly as she did many years ago and has a face for television. So John, welcome to the show. |
| 1:20.8 | Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Good to talk to you, Rhea. Good to talk to you too. So you wrote your |
| 1:25.1 | latest book, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace, which is I think a great review as I was telling you |
| 1:30.0 | before. It's hard, I think, especially for historical books to thread that needle of being |
| 1:36.0 | interesting from a historical perspective, but approachable for someone who doesn't spend |
| 1:41.1 | as much time surrounded by history books like I do. And so I think that's not an easy needle to thread. |
| 1:47.8 | Well, thank you. I'm a deep history nerd and I always find it disappointing when stories just |
| 1:53.0 | kind of regurgitate the same dozen or so anecdotes. So I try to do more than that to give a little |
| 1:58.5 | sense to the character of the person at the time and the texture. You know, one of the things we're |
| 2:03.1 | all engaged in is trying to make the old stories new again. And I'm a big believer in applied |
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