American historian (born 1941)
Michael A. Burlingame is an American historian noted for his works on Abraham Lincoln. He is the Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. Burlingame has written or edited twenty books about Lincoln.
Early life and education.
Burlingame was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1960. He studied at Princeton University (BA 1964) where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. He received a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 1971.
Career.
Burlingame was a member of the history department at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, from 1968 and until 2001. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois Springfield in 2009.
Burlingame is a renowned scholar on the life of Abraham Lincoln. He authored "The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln" (1994) and the two-volume "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" (2008). The former was said to have launched a new "'golden age' of Lincoln scholarship." The latter won the 2010 Lincoln Prize, was a co-winner of the annual book prize awarded by the Abraham Lincoln Institute, and won the Russell P. Strange Book Award given annually by the Illinois State Historical Society for the best book on Illinois history. Burlingame has edited over a dozen volumes of Lincoln primary source materials.
Burlingame is a board member and officer of both the Abraham Lincoln Association and Abraham Lincoln Institute. In addition to his awards for "Abraham Lincoln: A Life", he has received the Abraham Lincoln Association Book Prize (1996), the Lincoln Diploma of Honor from Lincoln Memorial University (1998), Honorable Mention for the Lincoln Prize, Gettysburg College (2001), and was inducted as a laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2009 as a Bicentennial Laureate.
Burlingame has charged several Lincoln scholars with plagiarism. In 2000, Burlingame submitted a review to "The Journal of American History" alleging plagiarism in John C. Waugh's book, "Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency". In the same review, Burlingame also highlighted errors in citation and transcription in Harold Holzer's book, "The Lincoln Mailbag: America Writes to the President, 1861-1896". Holzer responded by charging that Burlingame had "riven the Lincoln field, and made it unpleasant to contribute scholarship. He's the Torquemada of academic journalism." In 1993, and again in 2002, Burlingame was involved in the Stephen B. Oates controversy, maintaining Oates plagiarized in his Lincoln biography, "With Malice Toward None".
References.
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