Photo by Holger Thoss
James Oakes
James Oakes
Awards
Winner — Lincoln Prize, 2008
Winner — Lincoln Prize, 2013
Shortlisted — Lincoln Prize, 2022
Books by James Oakes
Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865
Paperback, 2014
Winner of the Lincoln Prize
"Oakes brilliantly succeeds in [clarifying] the aims of the war with a wholly new perspective." —David Brion Davis, New York Review of Books
The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War
Hardback, 2014
An award-winning historian illuminates the strategy for ending slavery that precipitated the crisis of civil war.
The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics
Paperback, 2008
"A great American tale told with a deft historical eye, painstaking analysis, and a supple clarity of writing.”—Jean Baker
Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865
Hardback, 2013
A powerful history of emancipation that reshapes our understanding of Lincoln, the Civil War, and the end of American slavery.
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders
Paperback, 1998
"A sweeping and spirited history of Southern slaveholders."—David Herbert Donald
Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South
Paperback, 1998
"The most valuable and stimulating general interpretation of the Old South to appear in recent years."—George M. Fredrickson
The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution
Hardback, 2021
An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln’s antislavery strategies.
The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics
E Book, 2011
"A great American tale told with a deft historical eye, painstaking analysis, and a supple clarity of writing.”—Jean Baker
Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865
E Book, 2013
Winner of the Lincoln Prize
"Oakes brilliantly succeeds in [clarifying] the aims of the war with a wholly new perspective." —David Brion Davis, New York Review of Books
The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War
E Book, 2014
A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction