Best Selling Books by Eric Foner

Eric Foner is the author of Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (1980), Story of American Freedom (1999), Who Owns History? (2003), Give Me Liberty! An American History (2016), Forever Free (2013).

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Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War

Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War
Insisting that politics and ideology must remain at the forefront of any examination of nineteenth-century America, Foner reasserts the centrality of the Civil War to the people of that period. The first section of this book deals with the causes of the sectional conflict; the second, with the antislavery movement; and a final group of essays treats land and labor after the war. Taken together, Foner''s essays work towards reintegrating the social, political, and intellectual history of the nineteenth century.

Story of American Freedom

release date: Sep 07, 1999
Story of American Freedom
Freedom is the cornerstone of his sweeping narrative that focuses not only congressional debates and political treatises since the Revolution but how the fight for freedom took place on plantation and picket lines and in parlors and bedrooms.

Who Owns History?

release date: Apr 16, 2003
Who Owns History?
A thought-provoking new book from one of America''s finest historians "History," wrote James Baldwin, "does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do." Rarely has Baldwin''s insight been more forcefully confirmed than during the past few decades. History has become a matter of public controversy, as Americans clash over such things as museum presentations, the flying of the Confederate flag, or reparations for slavery. So whose history is being written? Who owns it? In Who Owns History?, Eric Foner proposes his answer to these and other questions about the historian''s relationship to the world of the past and future. He reconsiders his own earlier ideas and those of the pathbreaking Richard Hofstadter. He also examines international changes during the past two decades--globalization, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa--and their effects on historical consciousness. He concludes with considerations of the enduring, but often misunderstood, legacies of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. This is a provocative, even controversial, study of the reasons we care about history--or should.

Give Me Liberty! An American History

release date: Sep 15, 2016
Give Me Liberty! An American History
Give Me Liberty! is the #1 book in the U.S. history survey course because it works in the classroom. A single-author text by a leader in the field, Give Me Liberty! delivers an authoritative, accessible, concise, and integrated American history. Updated with powerful new scholarship on borderlands and the West, the Fifth Edition brings new interactive History Skills Tutorials and Norton InQuizitive for History, the award-winning adaptive quizzing tool. The best-selling Seagull Edition is also available in full color for the first time.

Forever Free

release date: Jun 26, 2013
Forever Free
From one of our most distinguished historians, a new examination of the vitally important years of Emancipation and Reconstruction during and immediately following the Civil War–a necessary reconsideration that emphasizes the era’s political and cultural meaning for today’s America. In Forever Free, Eric Foner overturns numerous assumptions growing out of the traditional understanding of the period, which is based almost exclusively on white sources and shaped by (often unconscious) racism. He presents the period as a time of determination, especially on the part of recently emancipated black Americans, to put into effect the principles of equal rights and citizenship for all. Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, he places a new emphasis on the centrality of the black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and–even more actively–in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war’s end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment. He shows us that the birth of the Ku Klux Klan and renewed acts of racial violence were retaliation for the progress made by blacks soon after the war. He refutes lingering misconceptions about Reconstruction, including the attribution of its ills to corrupt African American politicians and “carpetbaggers,” and connects it to the movements for civil rights and racial justice. Joshua Brown’s illustrated commentary on the era’s graphic art and photographs complements the narrative. He offers a unique portrait of how Americans envisioned their world and time. Forever Free is an essential contribution to our understanding of the events that fundamentally reshaped American life after the Civil War–a persuasive reading of history that transforms our sense of the era from a time of failure and despair to a threshold of hope and achievement.

Reconstruction

release date: Dec 13, 2011
Reconstruction
From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" (New York Times Book Review), a newly updated edition of the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern America, with a new introduction from the author. Eric Foner''s "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed. Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves'' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans. This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.

Nothing But Freedom

release date: Sep 01, 2007
Nothing But Freedom
Nothing But Freedom examines the aftermath of emancipation in the South and the restructuring of society by which the former slaves gained, beyond their freedom, a new relation to the land they worked on, to the men they worked for, and to the government they lived under. Taking a comparative approach, Eric Foner examines Reconstruction in the southern states against the experience of Haiti, where a violent slave revolt was followed by the establishment of an undemocratic government and the imposition of a system of forced labor; the British Caribbean, where the colonial government oversaw an orderly transition from slavery to the creation of an almost totally dependent work force; and early twentieth-century southern and eastern Africa, where a self-sufficient peasantry was dispossessed in order to create a dependent black work force. Measuring the progress of freedmen in the post--Civil War South against that of freedmen in other recently emancipated societies, Foner reveals Reconstruction to have been, despite its failings, a unique and dramatic experiment in interracial democracy in the aftermath of slavery. Steven Hahn''s timely new foreword places Foner''s analysis in the context of recent scholarship and assesses its enduring impact in the twenty-first century.

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad

release date: Jan 19, 2015
Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. More than any other scholar, Eric Foner has influenced our understanding of America''s history. Now, making brilliant use of extraordinary evidence, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian once again reconfigures the national saga of American slavery and freedom. A deeply entrenched institution, slavery lived on legally and commercially even in the northern states that had abolished it after the American Revolution. Slaves could be found in the streets of New York well after abolition, traveling with owners doing business with the city''s major banks, merchants, and manufacturers. New York was also home to the North’s largest free black community, making it a magnet for fugitive slaves seeking refuge. Slave catchers and gangs of kidnappers roamed the city, seizing free blacks, often children, and sending them south to slavery. To protect fugitives and fight kidnappings, the city''s free blacks worked with white abolitionists to organize the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835. In the 1840s vigilance committees proliferated throughout the North and began collaborating to dispatch fugitive slaves from the upper South, Washington, and Baltimore, through Philadelphia and New York, to Albany, Syracuse, and Canada. These networks of antislavery resistance, centered on New York City, became known as the underground railroad. Forced to operate in secrecy by hostile laws, courts, and politicians, the city’s underground-railroad agents helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown, their significance little understood. Building on fresh evidence—including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York—Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. The story is inspiring—full of memorable characters making their first appearance on the historical stage—and significant—the controversy over fugitive slaves inflamed the sectional crisis of the 1850s. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by "practical abolition," person by person, family by family.

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery

release date: Sep 20, 2011
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
From a master historian comes the story of Lincoln''s--and the nation''s--transformation through the crucible of slavery and emancipation.

Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men

release date: Apr 20, 1995
Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men
Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men has been recognized as a classic, an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the causes of the American Civil War. A key work in establishing political ideology as a major concern of modern Americanhistorians, it remains the only full-scale evaluation of the ideas of the early Republican party. modern American historical writing.

America’s Reconstruction

release date: Jun 01, 1997
America’s Reconstruction
One of the most misunderstood periods in American history, Reconstruction remains relevant today because its central issue -- the role of the federal government in protecting citizens'' rights and promoting economic and racial justice in a heterogeneous society -- is still unresolved. America''s Reconstruction examines the origins of this crucial time, explores how black and white Southerners responded to the abolition of slavery, traces the political disputes between Congress and President Andrew Johnson, and analyzes the policies of the Reconstruction governments and the reasons for their demise. America''s Reconstruction was published in conjunction with a major exhibition on the era produced by the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia, and the Virginia Historical Society. The exhibit included a remarkable collection of engravings from Harper''s Weekly, lithographs, and political cartoons, as well as objects such as sculptures, rifles, flags, quilts, and other artifacts. An important tool for deepening the experience of those who visited the exhibit, America''s Reconstruction also makes this rich assemblage of information and period art available to the wider audience of people unable to see the exhibit in its host cities. A work that stands along as well as in proud accompaniment to the temporary collection, it will appeal to general readers and assist instructors of both new and seasoned students of the Civil War and its tumultuous aftermath.

Freedom Road

release date: Mar 26, 2015
Freedom Road
"Howard Fast makes superb use of his material. ... Aside from its social and historical implications, Freedom Road is a high-geared story, told with that peculiar dramatic intensity of which Fast is a master". -- Chicago Daily News

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

release date: Sep 17, 2019
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation’s foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time. The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States. Eric Foner’s compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African-American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.

Tom Paine and Revolutionary America

release date: Jan 01, 2005
Tom Paine and Revolutionary America
Since its publication in 1976, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America hasbeen recognized as a classic study of the career of the foremost politicalpamphleteer of the Age of Revolution, and a model of how to integrate thepolitical, intellectual, and social history of the struggle for Americanindependence.Foner skillfully brings together an account of Paine''s remarkable career witha careful examination of the social worlds within which he operated, in GreatBritain, France, and especially the United States. He explores Paine''s politicaland social ideas and the way he popularized them by pioneering a new form ofpolitical writing, using simple, direct language and addressing himself to areading public far broader than previous writers had commanded. He shows whichof Paine''s views remained essentially fixed throughout his career, whiledirecting attention to the ways his stance on social questions evolved under thepressure of events. This enduring work makes clear the tremendous impact Paine''swriting exerted on the American Revolution, and suggests why he failed to have asimilar impact during his career in revolutionary France. And it offers newinsights into the nature and internal tensions of the republican outlook thathelped to shape the Revolution.In a new preface, Foner discusses the origins of this book and the influencesof the 1960s and 1970s on its writing. He also looks at how Paine has beenadopted by scholars and politicians of many stripes, and has even been calledthe patron saint of the Internet.

Reconstruction Updated Edition

release date: Dec 02, 2014
Reconstruction Updated Edition
With a New Introduction From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" (New York Times Book Review), a newly updated edition of the prizewinning classic work on the post-Civil War period that shaped modern America Eric Foner''s "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) redefined how the post–Civil War period was viewed. Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the quest of emancipated slaves searching for economic autonomy and equal citizenship, and describes the remodeling of Southern society, the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations, and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans. This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post–Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.

American Colonies

release date: Jan 01, 2001
American Colonies
"In American Colonies, historian Alan Taylor challenges the traditional Anglocentric focus of colonial history by exploring the many cultural influences that gave birth to America. The result is a superlative history of the prerevolutionary era in North America that is unprecedented in its scope and sure to become a landmark."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Brief Fourth Edition) (Vol. One Volume)

release date: Feb 14, 2014
Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Brief Fourth Edition) (Vol. One Volume)
The leading text in a brief, full-color edition. Clear, concise, integrated, and up-to-date, Give Me Liberty! is a proven success with teachers and students. Eric Foner pulls the pieces of the past together into a cohesive picture, using the theme of freedom throughout. The Brief Fourth Edition is streamlined and coherent, and features stronger coverage of American religion, a bright four-color design, and a reinforced pedagogical program aimed at fostering effective reading and study skills.

Voices of Freedom

release date: Dec 01, 2022
Voices of Freedom
See why this is the most popular reader for the U.S. history course.

The Reader's Companion to American History

release date: Jan 01, 1991
The Reader's Companion to American History
A collection of short descriptive entries and longer evaluative articles covers the political, economic, cultural, and social history of the United States

Freedom's Lawmakers

release date: Jan 01, 1993
Freedom's Lawmakers
A compilation of concise biographical data on some 1,400 Black public officials of the Reconstruction era (1865-1877). Foner draws on growing research in this area to portray the diversity of these lawmakers'' life experience, and to dispel dogged myths as to their fitness for office. An ample (21 p.) introduction provides an overview; five indexes offer access by state, occupation, birth status (free or slave), office held, and topic. Over 100 photographs (bandw), and 16 tables enhance this valuable document. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Slavery's Ghost

release date: Nov 01, 2011
Slavery's Ghost
“Three thoughtful contributions . . . attempt to deepen and extend an emerging discussion about the limits to African American freedom and autonomy.” —Slavery & Abolition President Abraham Lincoln freed millions of slaves in the South in 1863, rescuing them, as history tells us, from a brutal and inhuman existence and making the promise of freedom and equal rights. This is a moment to celebrate and honor, to be sure, but what of the darker, more troubling side of this story? Slavery’s Ghost explores the dire, debilitating, sometimes crushing effects of slavery on race relations in American history. In three conceptually wide-ranging and provocative essays, the authors assess the meaning of freedom for enslaved and free Americans in the decades before and after the Civil War. They ask important and challenging questions: How did slaves and freedpeople respond to the promise and reality of emancipation? How committed were white southerners to the principle of racial subjugation? And in what ways can we best interpret the actions of enslaved and free Americans during slavery and Reconstruction? Collectively, these essays offer fresh approaches to questions of local political power, the determinants of individual choices, and the discourse that shaped and defined the history of black freedom. Written by three prominent historians of the period, Slavery’s Ghost forces readers to think critically about the way we study the past, the depth of racial prejudice, and how African Americans won and lost their freedom in nineteenth-century America.

Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Brief Fourth Edition) (Vol. 1)

release date: Feb 07, 2014
Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Brief Fourth Edition) (Vol. 1)
The leading text in a brief, full-color edition. Clear, concise, integrated, and up-to-date, Give Me Liberty! is a proven success with teachers and students. Eric Foner pulls the pieces of the past together into a cohesive picture, using the theme of freedom throughout. The Brief Fourth Edition is streamlined and coherent, and features stronger coverage of American religion, a bright four-color design, and a reinforced pedagogical program aimed at fostering effective reading and study skills.

America's Reconstruction

release date: Jan 01, 1995
America's Reconstruction
Examines the origins of Reconstruction during the Civil War, explores how African-American and white Southerners responded to defeat and the destruction of slavery, and examines the policies of Reconstruction governments and the reasons for their overthrow.

A House Divided

release date: Jan 01, 1990
A House Divided
In conjunction with a ten-year exhibit at the Chicago Historical Society, beginning January 1990.

America's Black Past

America's Black Past
Selected readings shed new light on important events in black history and current developments in Negro protest movements

Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution

release date: Mar 01, 2008
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