- Born:
- May 22, 1934, Atlanta, Georgia. U.S. (age 92)
- Awards And Honors:
- Pulitzer Prize
- Peabody Award
Garry Wills
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Who is Garry Wills?
Garry Wills (born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 22, 1934) is an American historian, journalist, and author known for his thought-provoking books on Roman Catholicism, history, and politics. Over his career, Wills's work has explored a diverse range of topics, from the U.S. presidency to the analysis of religious texts, often challenging conventional views. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University and Northwestern University and has received a Peabody Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
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What kinds of books and articles has Garry Wills written?
Garry Wills is an American historian, journalist, and author known for his writings on Roman Catholicism, history, and politics.
Wills's first book, Chesterton: Man and Mask, a biography of English social critic and author G.K. Chesterton, was published in 1961. His first book on Catholicism, Politics and Catholic Freedom, appeared in 1964. In his first book on a U.S. president, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970), Wills proposed that Richard Nixon was a liberal. He won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award for his book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992). In 2000, he published his most-biting critique of the Catholic Church to that point, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit.
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Which subjects does Garry Wills focus on in his historical writing?
Garry Wills is an American historian, journalist, and author whose writings encompass a variety of subjects, including Roman Catholicism, history, and politics. His works often present provocative and unconventional perspectives, challenging established norms and inviting critical discourse. Wills has written about U.S. presidents, including Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, George Washington, and Ronald Reagan. He has also written extensively about the shaping of public image, as well as Christianity and organized religion.
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How has Garry Wills influenced the way people understand American history or politics?
Garry Wills is an American historian, journalist, and author known for his works on American history, politics, and Roman Catholicism.
Wills's experience covering civil rights events and Vietnam War protests shifted his politics in a more liberal direction. His writings often challenge conventional views, such as his argument that Richard Nixon was a liberal, contrary to his public image. Wills's exploration of the U.S. presidency and public image is evident in books like Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his study of Abraham Lincoln's prose, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America.
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What are some of Garry Wills’s most famous or important works?
Garry Wills is an American historian, journalist, and author known for his writings on Roman Catholicism, history, and politics.
Key works include:
* Chesterton: Man and Mask (1961), a biography of English social critic G.K. Chesterton.
* Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970), analyzed Richard Nixon and the troubled relationship between the president and the country.
* Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1978), a reconsideration of the basis for Thomas Jefferson’s political thought.
* Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992), a study of Abraham Lincoln’s prose, which won Wills a Pulitzer Prize.
* Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (2000), a critique of the papacy.1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How has Garry Wills’s work as a journalist and author been recognized or awarded?
Garry Wills, an American historian, journalist, and author, has received recognition and awards for his work. He won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1978). Wills also received a Peabody Award for writing and directing the PBS Frontline documentary The Choice, which provided an in-depth view into the 1988 presidential campaign. Additionally, he earned a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award for his book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992).
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Garry Wills (born May 22, 1934, Atlanta, Georgia. U.S.) is an American historian, journalist, and author of provocative books on Roman Catholicism, history, and politics.
Wills grew up in Wisconsin and Michigan, where he spent his childhood immersed in books—to the chagrin of his father, an appliance salesman and boxing coach. Wills studied philosophy at St. Louis University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1957. While pursuing a master’s degree at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, he submitted an article to National Review that so impressed the magazine’s editor, William F. Buckley, Jr., that he offered Wills a job. Wills contributed articles to the conservative magazine—and would continue to do so for more than a decade—but remained in school, completing a degree in philosophy at Xavier in 1958 before receiving a second M.A. in 1959 from Yale University and a Ph.D. in classics, also from Yale, in 1961. His first book, Chesterton: Man and Mask, a biography of English social critic and author G.K. Chesterton, was published in 1961.
Wills taught classics and humanities at Johns Hopkins University beginning in 1962 and continued to publish, with his first book on Catholicism, Politics and Catholic Freedom, appearing in 1964. Wills’s experience covering seminal civil rights and Vietnam War protest events for Esquire throughout the 1960s, including the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., helped to steer Wills’s conservative politics on these issues in a more liberal direction, and he parted ways with the National Review. In his first book on a U.S. president, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970), Wills proposed that Richard Nixon was a liberal—contrary to the Republican president’s public image—and analyzed the troubled relationship between the president and the country. Many critics saw the book as a criticism not only of Nixon but of the United States itself. Wills continued to publish on Catholic thought, including Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophecy, and Radical Religion (1972), and won several awards, among them the National Book Critics Circle Award, for his controversial reconsideration of the basis for Thomas Jefferson’s political thought, Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1978).
In 1980 Wills left Johns Hopkins to join the faculty of Northwestern University, where he would remain for more than three decades. In the 1980s Wills continued his exploration of the politics of the U.S. presidency and the shaping of public image with the books The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power (1982), Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (1984), and Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home (1987). He received a Peabody Award for writing and directing the PBS Frontline documentary The Choice, an in-depth look at the 1988 presidential campaign, and a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award for his book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992), a study of the enduring power and influence of Abraham Lincoln’s prose.
In 2000 Wills published his most-biting critique of the Catholic church to that point, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, an indictment of what he saw as the tyranny and deceit of the papacy. He answered his many critics with Why I Am a Catholic (2002), which included a personal accounting of his belief. With Mr. Jefferson’s University (2002) and Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power (2003), he again turned to an analysis of the American presidency. Further examinations of the basis of Christianity and critiques of organized religion followed with What Jesus Meant (2006), What Paul Meant (2006), and What the Gospels Meant (2008). In 2011 he published a biography of St. Augustine, one of his heroes of political and religious thought, titled Augustine’s Confessions.
Wills’s unorthodox views on Catholicism were once again displayed in Why Priests?: A Failed Tradition (2013), in which he argued that the priesthood is superfluous and without precedent in the early church. His later books included The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis (2015) and What the Qur’an Meant and Why It Matters (2017).