Allen Guelzo, who serves as the senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University and Director of the James Madison Program’s Initiative in Politics and Statesmanship, will present a free, public lecture entitled “American National Identity: Lincoln at Gettysburg” as part of the Questioning American Identities speaker series on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. in Trout Auditorium. The Bucknell Program for American Leadership and Citizenship is sponsoring the series, which examines questions that some see dividing the U.S. in a new “cold civil war” leading into the 2020 election

Guelzo is the leading authority on the Civil War, Reconstruction and Lincoln, and is a three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize. He provides a new perspective on Reconstruction, showing that it did not take place only in the South but also in the West

His talk will explore a foundational argument for American national identity emerging from the Civil War and a battle in which Bucknellians participated.