Burlingame is a renowned scholar on the life of
Abraham Lincoln. He authored The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln (1994) and the two-volume Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2008). The former was said to have launched a new "'golden age' of Lincoln scholarship."[6] The latter won the 2010
Lincoln Prize, was a co-winner of the annual book prize awarded by the
Abraham Lincoln Institute, and won the Russell P. Strange Book Award given annually by the Illinois State Historical Society for the best book on Illinois history. Burlingame has edited over a dozen volumes of Lincoln primary source materials.
Burlingame is a board member and officer of both the
Abraham Lincoln Association and
Abraham Lincoln Institute. In addition to his awards for Abraham Lincoln: A Life, he has received the Abraham Lincoln Association Book Prize (1996), the Lincoln Diploma of Honor from Lincoln Memorial University (1998), Honorable Mention for the Lincoln Prize, Gettysburg College (2001), and 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.[7]
Burlingame has charged several Lincoln scholars with plagiarism. In 2000, Burlingame submitted a review to The Journal of American History alleging plagiarism in
John C. Waugh's book, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency. In the same review, Burlingame also highlighted errors in citation and transcription in
Harold Holzer's book, The Lincoln Mailbag: America Writes to the President, 1861-1896. Holzer responded by charging that Burlingame had "riven the Lincoln field, and made it unpleasant to contribute scholarship. He's the
Torquemada of academic journalism."[8] In 1993, and again in 2002, Burlingame was involved in the
Stephen B. Oates controversy, maintaining Oates plagiarized in his Lincoln biography.[9][10]
Michael Burlingame, ed. (1998) [1916]. Stevens, Walter B., A Reporter's Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Michael Burlingame, and Ettlinger, John R. Turner, eds. (1999). Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of
John Hay, Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press.
ISBN978-0809322626
Michael Burlingame, ed. (2000). With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and other Writings of
John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865, Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press.
ISBN978-0809326839
Michael Burlingame, ed. (2000) [1890].
Stoddard, William O., Inside the White House in War Times: Memoirs and Reports of Lincoln's Secretary, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Michael Burlingame, ed. (2002). Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of
Noah Brooks. Johns Hopkins University Press.
ISBN9780801869150
Michael Burlingame, ed. (2003) [1922].
Weik, Jesse W., The Real Lincoln: A Portrait, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
ISBN978-0803298224
Lincoln and the Civil War. Concise Lincoln Library. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. 2011.
ISBN978-0-8093-3053-9.
Review
Michael Burlingame, ed. (2018). Sixteenth President-in-Waiting: Abraham Lincoln and the Springfield Dispatches of Henry Villard, 1860–1861, Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press.
ISBN978-0809336432
Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Vol. 1. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008.
ISBN978-0-8018-8993-6.
Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Vol. 2. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008.
ISBN978-1-4214-1058-6.
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, edited and abridged by Jonathan W. White. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2023.
ISBN9781421445557
An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and
Mary Todd. Berkeley and Oakland, CA: Pegasus Books, 2021.
ISBN978-1643137346
The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality. Berkeley and Oakland, CA: Pegasus Books, 2021.
ISBN978-1643138138