We are accustomed to talking about the events of 1776 as
“revolutionary” and the conflict of 1861-65 as a “civil war”
involving a legalistic disagreement (whether the Union is
dissolvable). Both were very violent. It is possible however
that neither description fits the subject. In fact, we may have
the terminology exactly backwards. This lecture will look
briefly at the American Revolution as a legalistic event (a
deadly one, to be sure) and then turn to the Civil War as an
international revolutionary movement that the U.S. public, until
Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” has been slow to grasp. Just why
this is so also will be discussed. Dr. Jamil Zainaldin is
President of the Georgia Humanities Council. He received his PhD
in 1976 from the University of Chicago, and has taught at
Northwestern University and Case Western Reserve University,
focusing on U.S. History and Law. Zainaldin has also worked in
Washington in a variety of roles, including Deputy Director of
the American Historical Association. He is autho