first, harold holzer has written or edited several dozen books. he is by my standards perhaps the best authority on abraham lincoln in the world. i recently had the opportunity to use one of his books in my undergraduate class with great success. harold has received the national humanities metal and he is senior vice president for external affairs at the metropolitan museum of art. his associate, craig symonds is professor emeritus of the u.s. naval academy and former naval officer. he is a very famous on these grounds because his wife worked here for many years and craig was a volunteer cross country coach. my favorite of all his books is lincoln and his admirals' which i am going to use in the fall semester for my class. it won the lincoln prize which is exceedingly prestigious in the field of the civil war. he also has written the best biography of joseph johnson and patrick clayborn. our third participant is annette gordon-reed who received her law degree from harvard and had a youthful fascination with thomas jefferson. she has written severa

>>> from the booktv archives, harold holzer chairman of the u.s. lincoln bicentennial commission and author of numerous books on abraham lincoln recalls the four months between president lincoln's election in november 1860 to his inauguration in march, 1861. during this time the president was pressured by republicans and democrats from throughout the country to maintain the union. he contends that president lincoln's resistance to heat the calls was due to his desire to stop the continuation of slavery and not from his misunderstanding of the seriousness of the session. this event hosted by the abraham lincoln bookshop in chicago is an hour. >> welcome to virtual book signing. we are at the abraham lincoln bookshop as always and i am daniel weinberg. i am pleased to have you here. .. >> well, we feature of course discussions and questions of the author and that's different for book signings. if you're watching live, we encourage you to email questions in, and we will try to get them on air and have them answered for you right now. if you're watchin