Eric Foner (/ˈfnər/; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstruction, and historiography, and has been a member of the faculty at the Columbia University Department of History since 1982. He is the author of several popular textbooks. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Foner is the most frequently cited author on college syllabi for history courses.[1] According to historian Timothy Snyder, Foner is the first to associate the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 with section three of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution.[2]

Eric Foner
A grey-haired bespectacled man wearing a light blue shirt and sitting on a chair behind a desk; behind him is a bookshelf and a wall mounted with certificates and awards
Foner in 2009
Born (1943-02-07) February 7, 1943 (age 81)
New York City, U.S.
Spouses
  • (m. 1965; div. 1977)
  • (m. 1980)
Children1
ParentJack D. Foner (father)
Awards
Academic background
Alma mater
Doctoral advisorRichard Hofstadter
InfluencesJames P. Shenton
Academic work
DisciplineHistory
Sub-disciplineAmerican political history
Institutions
Notable students
Notable worksReconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution - 1863-1877 (1988)
The Fiery Trial (2010)

Foner has published several books on the Reconstruction period, starting with Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 in 1988.[3] His online courses on "The Civil War and Reconstruction", published in 2014, are available from Columbia University on ColumbiaX.[4]

In 2011, Foner's The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the Lincoln Prize, and the Bancroft Prize.[5][6] Foner previously won the Bancroft Prize in 1989 for his book Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution - 1863–1877. In 2000, he was elected president of the American Historical Association.[7] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.[8]

Early life and education edit

Foner was born in New York City, New York, the son of Jewish parents, Liza (née Kraitz), a high school art teacher, and historian Jack D. Foner, who was active in the trade union movement and the campaign for civil rights for African Americans. Eric Foner describes his father as his "first great teacher", and recalls how,

deprived of his livelihood while I was growing up, he supported our family as a freelance lecturer. ... Listening to his lectures, I came to appreciate how present concerns can be illuminated by the study of the past—how the repression of the McCarthy era recalled the days of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the civil rights movement needed to be viewed in light of the great struggles of black and white abolitionists, and in the brutal suppression of the Philippine insurrection at the turn of the century could be found the antecedents of American intervention in Vietnam. I also imbibed a way of thinking about the past in which visionaries and underdogs—Tom Paine, Wendell Phillips, Eugene V. Debs, and W. E. B. Du Bois—were as central to the historical drama as presidents and captains of industry, and how a commitment to social justice could infuse one's attitudes towards the past.[9]

After graduating from Long Beach High School in 1959, Foner enrolled at Columbia University, where he was originally a physics major, before switching to history after taking a year-long seminar with James P. Shenton on the Civil War and Reconstruction during his junior year. "It probably determined that most of my career has been focused on that period," he recalled years later.[10] A year later, in 1963, Foner graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in history. He studied at the University of Oxford as a Kellett Fellow; he received a BA from Oriel College in 1965, where he was a member of the college's 1966 University Challenge winning team, though he did not appear in the final, having already returned to the US.[11] After graduating from Oxford, Foner returned to Columbia where he earned his doctoral degree in 1969 under the supervision of Richard Hofstadter. His doctoral thesis, published in 1970 as Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War, explored the deeply rooted ideals and interests that drove the northern majority to oppose slavery and ultimately wage war against Southern secession.

Career edit

Writing on the Reconstruction Era edit

Foner is a leading authority on the Reconstruction Era. In a seminal essay in American Heritage in October 1982, later reprinted in Reviews in American History, Foner wrote,

In the past twenty years, no period of American history has been the subject of a more thoroughgoing reevaluation than Reconstruction—the violent, dramatic, and still controversial era following the Civil War. Race relations, politics, social life, and economic change during Reconstruction have all been reinterpreted in the light of changed attitudes toward the place of blacks within American society. If historians have not yet forged a fully satisfying portrait of Reconstruction as a whole, the traditional interpretation that dominated historical writing for much of this century has irrevocably been laid to rest.[12]

"Foner has established himself as the leading authority on the Reconstruction period," wrote historian Michael Perman in reviewing Reconstruction. "This book is not simply a distillation of the secondary literature; it is a masterly account – broad in scope as well as rich in detail and insight.[3] "This is history written on a grand scale, a masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history," David Herbert Donald wrote in The New Republic. C. Vann Woodward, in The New York Review of Books, wrote, "Eric Foner has put together this terrible story with greater cogency and power, I believe, than has been brought to the subject heretofore."[13]

In a 2009 essay, Foner pondered whether Reconstruction might have turned out differently.

"It is wrong to think that, during the Civil War, President Lincoln embraced a single 'plan' of Reconstruction," he wrote. "Lincoln had always been willing to work closely with all factions of his party, including the Radicals on numerous occasions. I think it is quite plausible to imagine Lincoln and Congress agreeing to a Reconstruction policy encompassing basic civil rights for blacks (as was enacted in 1866) plus limited black suffrage, along the lines he proposed just before his death."[14][failed verification]

Foner's recent short summary of his views was published in The New York Times in 2015.[15]

Secession and the Soviet Union edit

As a visiting professor in Moscow in the early 1990s, Foner compared secessionist forces in the USSR with the secession movement in the US in the 1860s. In a February 1991 article, Foner noted that the Baltic states claimed the right to secede because they had been unwillingly annexed. In addition, he believed that the Soviet Union did not protect minorities while it tried to nationalize the republics. Foner identified a threat to existing minority groups within the Baltic states, who were in turn threatened by the new nationalist movements.[16]

Popular publications and documentaries edit

In a New York Times op-ed, he criticized President Donald Trump's tweet calling for the preservation of Confederate monuments and heritage, stating that they represented and glorified white supremacy rather than collective heritage.[17]

Media appearances edit

Foner has made multiple appearance on shows such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show to discuss US history.[18][19][20]

Reception edit

Journalist Nat Hentoff described Foner's The Story of American Freedom as "an indispensable book that should be read in every school in the land."[21] "Eric Foner is one of the most prolific, creative, and influential American historians of the past 20 years," according to The Washington Post. His work is "brilliant, important," a reviewer wrote in the Los Angeles Times.[22]

In a review of The Story of American Freedom in the New York Review of Books, Theodore Draper disagreed with Foner's conclusions, saying "If the story of American freedom is told largely from the perspective of blacks and women, especially the former, it is not going to be a pretty tale. Yet most Americans thought of themselves not only as free but as the freest people in the world."[23]

John Patrick Diggins of the City University of New York wrote that Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, was a "magisterial" and "moving" narrative, but compared Foner's "unforgiving" view of America for its racist past to his notably different views on the fall of communism and Soviet history.[24]

Foner's book Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad (2015) was judged "Intellectually probing and emotionally resonant" by the Los Angeles Times.[25] His previous book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) was described by Library Journal as "In the vast library on Lincoln, Foner's book stands out as the most sensible and sensitive reading of Lincoln's lifetime involvement with slavery and the most insightful assessment of Lincoln's—and indeed America's—imperative to move toward freedom lest it be lost."[26]

Awards and honors edit

In 1989, Foner received the Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians. In 1991, Foner received the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates.[27] In 1995, he was named Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities.[28]

In 2009, Foner 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 as a Bicentennial Laureate.[29]

In 2012, Foner received The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement.[30]

In 2020, Foner was awarded the Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award from the Organization of American Historians which goes to an individual or individuals whose contributions have significantly enriched our understanding and appreciation of American history.[31]

Personal life edit

Foner was married to screenwriter Naomi Foner (née Achs) from 1965 to 1977.[32] Since 1982, Foner has been married to historian Lynn Garafola.[33] They have a daughter.[citation needed]

Works edit

Books edit

External videos
  Booknotes interview with Foner on The Story of American Freedom, November 15, 1998, C-SPAN
  Presentation by Foner and Joshua Brown on Forever Free, January 12, 2006, C-SPAN
  Presentation by Foner on The Fiery Trial, October 27, 2010, C-SPAN
  Interview with Foner on The Fiery Trial, September 24, 2011, C-SPAN
  Presentation by Foner on The Fiery Trial, September 24, 2011, C-SPAN
  After Words interview with Foner on Gateway to Freedom, March 21, 2015, C-SPAN
  Presentation by Foner on Gateway to Freedom, September 30, 2015, C-SPAN
  Presentation by Foner on The Second Founding, October 2, 2019, C-SPAN

Some of his books have been translated into Portuguese, Italian, and Chinese.

Selected articles edit

References edit

  1. ^ Authors Archived December 16, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, Open Syllabus.
  2. ^ Snyder, Timothy, Law or Fear, The Supreme Court Chooses, Thinking about..., Substack, February 7, 2024
  3. ^ a b Perman, Michael. "Eric Foner's Reconstruction: A Finished Revolution". Reviews in American History, Vol. 17, No. 1. (March 1989), pp. 73–78.
  4. ^ "The Civil War and Reconstruction". edX. January 7, 2015. Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  5. ^ "Prestigious Lincoln Prize goes to Eric Foner". The Washington Post.
  6. ^ "Historian Foner among 3 winners of Bancroft Prize". Sify. March 28, 2011. Archived from the original on October 20, 2012. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  7. ^ "Eric Foner". American Historical Association.
  8. ^ "Election of New Members at the 2018 Spring Meeting". American Philosophical Society. April 28, 2018.
  9. ^ Wiener, Jon, "In Memoriam: Jack D. Foner", Perspectives (April 2000), American Historical Association.
  10. ^ Watkin, Eric, "Professor James P. Shenton '49: History's Happy Warrior", Columbia College Today 22:3 (Summer 1996).
  11. ^ "Columbia College Today".
  12. ^ Foner, Eric, "The New View Of Reconstruction," American Heritage, October/November 1983, Volume 34, Issue 6.
  13. ^ Columbia College Today: "Freedom Writer".
  14. ^ Foner, Eric (Winter 2009), "If Lincoln Hadn't Died...", American Heritage, Volume 58, Issue 6.
  15. ^ Foner, Eric (March 28, 2015). "Why Reconstruction Matters". The New York Times.
  16. ^ Foner, Eric (February 11, 1991). "Secession of Baltic States?". The Nation. 252.
  17. ^ Foner, Eric. (August 21, 2017) “Confederate Statues and 'Our' History", The New York Times. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  18. ^ "Eric Foner: Eric Foner says Abraham Lincoln didn't see slavery as a fundamental problem confronting America until well into his career". The Colbert Report. Comedy Central. February 11, 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  19. ^ "I's on Edjukashun – Texas School Board: Eric Foner disagrees with the Texas school board's decision to give students a completely misleading view of history". The Colbert Report. Comedy Central. February 11, 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  20. ^ "Exclusive – The Weakest Lincoln: In this extended clip, Judge Andrew Napolitano and Abraham Lincoln compete in a numbers game about the true cost of the Civil War". The Daily Show. Comedy Central. February 11, 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  21. ^ Mansart, Tom (2000). "Books". The New Crisis.
  22. ^ The Story of American Freedom: Eric Foner: 9780393319620. W. W. Norton & Company. September 17, 1999. ISBN 978-0-393-31962-0. Retrieved June 7, 2013 – via Amazon.com.
  23. ^ Draper, Theodore H. (September 23, 1999). "Freedom and Its Discontents by Theodore H. Draper". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  24. ^ Diggins, John Patrick, "Review: Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877", The National Interest, Fall 2002.
  25. ^ Smith, Wendy (January 8, 2015). "Review 'Gateway to Freedom' reveals underground railroad history". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
  26. ^ The Fiery Trial. W.W. Norton & Co. September 26, 2011. ISBN 978-0-393-34066-2.
  27. ^ "Foner and Tsividis Given 1991 Great Teacher Awards". University Record. 17 (5). September 27, 1991.
  28. ^ "New York Council for the Humanities". Nyhumanities.org. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  29. ^ "Laureates by Year – The Lincoln Academy of Illinois". The Lincoln Academy of Illinois. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  30. ^ The Lincoln Forum
  31. ^ "Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award Winners". Organization of American Historians.
  32. ^ "Eric Foner". IMDb.
  33. ^ Barnard College Newscenter Archived February 28, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  34. ^ Foner, Eric (April 20, 1995). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-509497-8.
  35. ^ Foner, Eric (1970). America's black past. Harper & Row. ISBN 9780060421151.
  36. ^ Foner, Eric (1971). Nat Turner. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780139331435.
  37. ^ Foner, Eric (2005). Tom Paine and Revolutionary America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517486-1.
  38. ^ Foner, Eric (October 2, 1980). Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-972708-7.
  39. ^ Foner, Eric (September 2007). Nothing But Freedom. LSU Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-3525-9.
  40. ^ Foner, Eric (January 10, 1990). A Short History of Reconstruction. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-096431-3.
  41. ^ Foner, Eric; Mahoney, Olivia (1990). A House Divided. ISBN 978-0-393-02755-6.
  42. ^ Foner, Eric; Garraty, John Arthur (1991). The Reader's Companion to American History. Houghton-Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-51372-9.
  43. ^ Foner, Eric (1992). "The tocsin of freedom".
  44. ^ Foner, Eric (1994). Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America (Inaugural Lectures) (University of Oxford). Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-952266-8 – via Amazon.com: Books.
  45. ^ Foner, Eric; Mahoney, Olivia (June 1, 1997). America's Reconstruction. LSU Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-2234-1.
  46. ^ Foner, Eric (1993). Freedom's Lawmakers. ISBN 978-0-19-507406-2.
  47. ^ Foner, Eric (1997). The New American History. ISBN 978-1-56639-552-6.
  48. ^ Foner, Eric (1994). The story of American freedom. ISBN 9780799215946.
  49. ^ Foner, Eric (April 16, 2003). Who Owns History?. ISBN 978-1-4299-2392-7.
  50. ^ Foner, Eric (December 1, 2005). Give Me Liberty!. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-92782-5.
  51. ^ Foner, Eric (2004). Voices of Freedom. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-92503-6.
  52. ^ Foner, Eric (2008). Voices of Freedom. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-93108-2.
  53. ^ Foner, Eric (2005). Forever Free. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-40259-3.
  54. ^ Foner, Eric (2009). Our Lincoln. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-33705-1.
  55. ^ Foner, Eric (September 26, 2011). The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-08082-7.

Further reading edit

  • Diggins, John Patrick (2002). "Fate and Freedom in History: The Two Worlds of Eric Foner". The National Interest (69): 79–90. JSTOR 42895561.
  • Smith, John David (2003). "Reviewed work: Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World, Eric Foner". The North Carolina Historical Review. 80 (3): 400–401. JSTOR 23522901.
  • "Book Reviews". The Public Historian. 25 (1): 91–109. 2003. doi:10.1525/tph.2003.25.1.91. JSTOR 10.1525/tph.2003.25.1.91.
  • Katz, Jamie. "Freedom Writer: Pulitzer Prize-winning Columbia historian Eric Foner '63, '69 GSAS personifies the great teacher and scholar who approaches his calling with moral urgency," Columbia College Today, Winter 2012–2013. online
  • Snowman, Daniel, "Eric Foner", History Today Volume 50, Issue 1, January 2000, pp. 26–27.
  • Kennedy, Randall, "Racist Litter" (review of Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution, Norton, October 2019, ISBN 978 0 393 65257 4, 288 pp.), London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 15 (July 30, 2020), pp. 21–23. Kennedy quotes Foner (p. 23): "A century and a half after the end of slavery, the project of equal citizenship remains unfinished."

External links edit

Lectures edit

Interviews edit

Academic offices
Preceded by Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions
1980–1981
Succeeded by
Preceded by Harmsworth Professor of American History
1993
Succeeded by
Professional and academic associations
Preceded by President of the
Organization of American Historians

1993–1994
Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the American Historical Association
2000
Succeeded by
Awards
Preceded by Bancroft Prize
1989
With: Edmund Morgan
Succeeded by
Preceded by Succeeded by
Preceded by Lincoln Prize
2011
Succeeded by
Preceded by Pulitzer Prize for History
2011
Succeeded by