Are We at War? The History and Meaning of Wartime in the United States
Michael Vorenberg
Michael Vorenberg received his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and is professor of history at Brown University, where he has taught since 1999. He is the author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment, a Finalist for the Lincoln Prize and a major source for Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln. His most recent book is Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War, which was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2025. He is currently on the board of editors of the Journal of Constitutional History and was previously on the board of editors of Law and History Review. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. His forthcoming article comparing declared states of emergency in Civil War-era America and present-day America will be published in the summer of 2026.
Professor Vorenberg's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Salvatori Center at CMC.