The Brewster Lecture
Each year the Department of History of East Carolina University sponsors the Lawrence F. Brewster Lecture in History. The Department sponsored the first Brewster Lecture in 1982 as part of the University’s seventy-fifth anniversary celebration and has published the lectures since 1984. The series bears the name of the late Professor Emeritus of History whose generosity supports the series, the Department, and the discipline at large.
The lecture series seeks to achieve four essential goals: to provide students, faculty, and members of the community with the opportunity to hear distinguished historians share their knowledge and mastery of the discipline; to stimulate an exchange of ideas and a continuing dialogue about issues of fundamental importance; to illuminate the present through the reflective prism of the past; and to support a critical requirement of modern times—the continuing process of education.
The East Carolina University Department of History proudly announces the 2007 annual Brewster Lecture as part of the centennial celebration of the founding of East Carolina University. This year’s speaker is the esteemed scholar and author James M. McPherson. The lecture will take place on November 7, 2007 at 8:00 PM in Hendrix Theatre of the Mendenhall Student Union. The title of Dr. McPherson’s lecture is “‘Old Abe Has Joined My Enemies’: The Lincoln-McClellan Relationship.” Admission is free and the History Department will host a reception afterward.
Professor McPherson is the George N. Davis ’86 Professor of History, Emeritus at Princeton University. He is a widely-known and respected historian of the U.S. Civil War. For more than forty years, his scholarship has enjoyed widespread readership among both academic historians and popular audiences. His best known publication, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford, 1988) won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in history. He has also written sixteen other books, including Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (1991), and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997, winner of the Lincoln Prize). His most recent publication is This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War (2007). In addition to his many articles and other scholarly contributions, he has made frequent appearances as an expert on episodes of “Civil War Journal” on the History Channel, and in documentaries televised on A&E, Discovery Channel, C-Span, and PBS. The ECU History Department welcomes faculty, students and the public to join us on this important occasion.
