2012 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize winners announced

The winners of the 2012 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize were announced recently, and this year’s winners were “Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union” by William C. Harris and “Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky” by Elizabeth D. Leonard.

The Lincoln Prize is administered by the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College and has been awarded annually since 1991 for the best non-fiction history work of the previous year on the American Civil War.

Nominees for this year’s prize included 116 books. This year’s Honorable Mention Recipient was “The Won Cause: Black and White Comradeship in the Grand Army of the Republic” by Barbara A. Gannon. Other finalists included “Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867” by William A. Dobak, “A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War” by Amanda Foreman and “The Iron Way: Railroads, the Civil War and the Making of Modern America” by William G. Thomas.

The complete winners of the Lincoln Awards are as follows:

1991 – “The Civil War” by Ken Burns
1992 – “Frederick Douglass” by William S. McFeely
1993 – “The Peculiar Institution” by Kenneth Stampp
1994 – “Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom and the Civil War” by Ira Berlin, et al.
1995 – “The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln” by Phillip Shaw Paludan
1996 – “Lincoln” by David Herbert Donald
1997 – “Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s and The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics” by Don Fehrenbacher
1998 – “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War” by James M. McPherson
1999 – “Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln” by Douglas L. Wilson
2000 – “Runaway Slaves: Rebels in the Plantation” by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger
2000 – “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President” by Allen C. Guelzo
2001 – “A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865” by Russell F. Weigley
2002 – “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” by David W. Blight
2003 – “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” by George C. Rable
2004 – “Lincoln” by Richard Carwardine
2005 – “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation” by Allen C. Guelzo
2006 – “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin
2007 – “Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Worlds” by Douglas L. Wilson
2008 – “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes
2008 – “Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his Private Letters” by Elizabeth Brown Pryor
2009 – “Tried by War” Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
2009 – “Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy and the Civil War” by Craig Symonds
2010 – “Abraham Lincoln: A Life” by Michael Burlingame
2011 – “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” by Eric Foner
2012 – “Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union” by William C. Harris
2012 – “Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky” by Elizabeth D. Leonard

In the end, how many of these Lincoln Prize winners have you had a chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.