Richard M. Gamble

Richard M. Gamble is a professor of history and holds the Anna Margaret Ross Alexander Chair in History and Politics at Hillsdale College.

His most recent book is the first intellectual and religious biography of Julia Ward Howe, A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War (Cornell University Press).

Prof. Gamble's previous books include The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation (ISI Books, 2003), The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being (ISI Book, 2007), the chapter on World War I for the Cambridge History of Religions in America (Cambridge UP, 2012), and In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth (Continuum, 2012).

Prof. Gamble's classes, essays, and reviews focus on the history of American civil religion and the long argument over the American identity.

He earned his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina.

Articles by this Author

“Let Us Die to Make Men Free”, Summer 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 3

Tears ran down the cheeks of Abraham Lincoln when he heard the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” sung in Congress in 1864 by a chaplain who had survived a Confederate prison. It would become the most famous literary production of the Civil War.

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