taught soldiers about the American Civil War. In 1978 after deciding to pursue the study of Lincoln from the economic angle, he published his first book Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream, which placed what Boritt called "the right to rise" at the center of Lincoln's outlook. One of a handful of books on Lincoln published in the 1970s, a 1995 survey of leading experts by Civil War Times lists it as one of the 10 most important books ever written about Lincoln. Gettysburg College After teaching at the University of Michigan, in 1981 Boritt came to Gettysburg College, founding the Civil War Institute, where the school created for him the nation's first fully funded chair for the study of the Civil War. He helped create the $50,000 Lincoln Prize, widely considered the most coveted award for the study of American history. He also helped create the Gilder Lehrman Institute, which is focused on improving the teaching of history in schools. Modern accomplishments Boritt served on the boards of the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, appointed by Congress. His book The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech Nobody Knows (2006) was featured on the cover of U.S. News & World Report and called "fascinating" by the New York Times. In September 2008 Boritt gave a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield to President George W. Bush, Laura Bush and a group including White House Advisor Karl Rove, Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. On November 17, 2008 President George W. Bush awarded Boritt the National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities "for a distinguished career of scholarship on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War era. His life's work and his life's story stand as testaments to our nation's precious legacy of liberty." His life story is the subject of a feature-length documentary film titled Budapest to Gettysburg (2007), directed by his son Jake Boritt. In 2009 he retired. Gabor Boritt was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State’s highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2009 as a Bicentennial Laureate. In 1996, Boritt received The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement. Boritt and his wife Liz live in an 18th-century farmhouse on the edge of the Gettysburg battlefield which they restored with