Eric Foner

{{Infobox academic

| name = Eric Foner

| image = Eric Foner, New York City, New York, September 15, 2009 (cropped).jpg

| image_size =

| alt = 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

| caption = Foner in 2009

| birth_date = {{birth date and age |mf=yes|1943|2|7}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| alma_mater = {{ubl | Columbia University| Oriel College, Oxford}}

| awards = {{ubl | Bancroft Prize (1989; 2011) | Lincoln Prize (2011) | Pulitzer Prize (2011)}}

| spouse = {{ubl | {{marriage|Naomi Achs|1965|1977|reason=divorced}} | {{marriage|Lynn Garafola
|1980}}}}

| children = 1

| parents = Jack D. Foner (father)

| thesis_title =

| thesis_year =

| school_tradition =

| doctoral_advisor = Richard Hofstadter

| academic_advisors =

| influences = James P. Shenton

| era =

| discipline = History

| sub_discipline = American political history

| workplaces = {{ubl | City College of New York | Columbia University}}

| doctoral_students =

| notable_students = {{flatlist|

}}

| main_interests =

| notable_works = Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution - 1863-1877 (1988)
The Fiery Trial (2010)

| notable_ideas =

| influenced =

| signature =

| signature_alt =

}}

Eric Foner ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|f|oʊ|n|ər}}; 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, such as the Give Me Liberty series for high school classrooms. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Foner is the most frequently cited author on college syllabi for history courses.[https://anatomyphysiologybank.com/?s=Eric+Foner&post_type=product List of all Testbank for Give Me Liberty! An American History] Open [https://anatomyphysiologybank.com anatomyphysiologybank].

Foner has published several books on the Reconstruction period, starting with Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 in 1988.Perman, Michael. "Eric Foner's Reconstruction: A Finished Revolution". Reviews in American History, Vol. 17, No. 1. (March 1989), pp. 73–78. His online courses on "The Civil War and Reconstruction", published in 2014, are available from Columbia University on ColumbiaX.{{cite web |title=The Civil War and Reconstruction |date=January 7, 2015 |website=edX |url=https://www.edx.org/xseries/civil-war-reconstruction |access-date=June 8, 2016}}

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.{{cite news |title=Prestigious Lincoln Prize goes to Eric Foner |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/house-divided/2011/02/prestigious_lincoln_prize_goes.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110519110731/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/house-divided/2011/02/prestigious_lincoln_prize_goes.html |archive-date=May 19, 2011}}{{cite web |title=Historian Foner among 3 winners of Bancroft Prize |website=Sify |date=March 28, 2011 |url=http://www.sify.com/movies/historian-foner-among-3-winners-of-bancroft-prize-news-hollywood-ld2dkndehfi.html |access-date=June 7, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020023530/http://www.sify.com/movies/historian-foner-among-3-winners-of-bancroft-prize-news-hollywood-ld2dkndehfi.html |archive-date=October 20, 2012}} 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.{{cite web |title=Eric Foner |publisher=American Historical Association |url=http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/Efoner.htm}} He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.{{cite web |title=Election of New Members at the 2018 Spring Meeting |publisher=American Philosophical Society |date=April 28, 2018 |url=https://www.amphilsoc.org/blog/election-new-members-2018-spring-meeting}}

Early life and education

Foner was born February 7, 1943,{{cite book|last=Clark|first=E. Culpepper|chapter=Reconstructing Reconstruction|title=Public Debate in the Civil War Era|editor-last=Zarefsky|editor-first=David|location=East Lansing, Mich.|publisher=Michigan State University Press|date=2023|isbn=9781611864588|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oMLHEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false|page=379}} 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,

{{Blockquote|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.Wiener, Jon, [https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/jack-d-foner-1910-99-april-2000/ "In Memoriam: Jack D. Foner"], Perspectives (April 2000), American Historical Association.}}

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.Watkin, Eric, [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol22/vol22_iss3/Professor_Shenton.html "Professor James P. Shenton '49: History's Happy Warrior"], Columbia College Today 22:3 (Summer 1996). 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.{{cite web |title=Columbia College Today |url=http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jul02/jul02_profile_foner.html}} 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

=Writing on the Reconstruction Era=

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,

{{Blockquote|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.Foner, Eric, "The New View Of Reconstruction," American Heritage, October/November 1983, Volume 34, Issue 6.}}

"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. "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."[https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/winter12/features5 Columbia College Today: "Freedom Writer"].

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

{{Blockquote|It is wrong to think that, during the Civil War, President Lincoln embraced a single "plan" of Reconstruction. ...

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. ...{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=If Lincoln Hadn't Died... |work=American Heritage |volume=58 |issue=6 |date=Winter 2009 |url=https://www.americanheritage.com/if-lincoln-hadnt-died |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219142052/http://www.americanheritage.com/content/if-lincoln-hadn%E2%80%99t-died?page=show |archive-date=2014-02-19}}}}

Foner's recent short summary of his views was published in The New York Times in 2015.{{cite news |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |title=Why Reconstruction Matters |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 28, 2015 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/opinion/sunday/why-reconstruction-matters.html?_r=0}}

=Secession and the Soviet Union=

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.{{cite journal |title=Secession of Baltic States? |first=Eric |last=Foner |journal=The Nation |date=February 11, 1991 |volume=252 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=19lNAQAAIAAJ}}

=Popular publications and documentaries=

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.Foner, Eric. (August 21, 2017) [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/opinion/confederate-statues-american-history.html "Confederate Statues and 'Our' History"], The New York Times. Retrieved January 2, 2019. 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.Snyder, Timothy, [https://substack.com/@snyder Law or Fear, The Supreme Court Chooses], Thinking about..., Substack, February 7, 2024

==Media appearances==

Foner has made multiple appearance on shows such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show to discuss US history.{{cite web |title=Eric Foner: Eric Foner says Abraham Lincoln didn't see slavery as a fundamental problem confronting America until well into his career |website=The Colbert Report |publisher=Comedy Central |date=February 11, 2011 |url=http://www.cc.com/video-clips/re8ih2/the-colbert-report-eric-foner |access-date=November 13, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117025708/http://www.cc.com/video-clips/re8ih2/the-colbert-report-eric-foner |archive-date=November 17, 2015}}{{cite web |title=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 |website=The Colbert Report |publisher=Comedy Central |date=February 11, 2011 |url=http://www.cc.com/video-clips/wuyjzf/the-colbert-report-i-s-on-edjukashun---texas-school-board |access-date=November 13, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117025704/http://www.cc.com/video-clips/wuyjzf/the-colbert-report-i-s-on-edjukashun---texas-school-board |archive-date=November 17, 2015}}{{cite web |title=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 |website=The Daily Show |publisher=Comedy Central |date=February 11, 2011 |url=http://www.cc.com/video-clips/abrzf9/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-exclusive---the-weakest-lincoln |access-date=November 13, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117030525/http://www.cc.com/video-clips/abrzf9/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-exclusive---the-weakest-lincoln |archive-date=November 17, 2015}}

Reception

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."{{cite news |work=The New Crisis |title=Books |first=Tom |last=Mansart |year=2000 |url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3812/is_200003/ai_n8891943}} "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.{{cite book |title=The Story of American Freedom: Eric Foner: 9780393319620 |date=September 17, 1999 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-31962-0 |via= Amazon.com |url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0393319628 |access-date=June 7, 2013}}

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."{{cite journal |title=Freedom and Its Discontents by Theodore H. Draper |journal=The New York Review of Books |date=1999-09-23 |last1=Draper |first1=Theodore H. |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1999/sep/23/freedom-and-its-discontents |access-date=2013-06-07}}

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.Diggins, John Patrick, [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_2002_Fall/ai_92042423/print "Review: Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877"], The National Interest, Fall 2002.

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.{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Wendy |title=Review 'Gateway to Freedom' reveals underground railroad history |work=Los Angeles Times |date=January 8, 2015 |url=http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-eric-foner-20150111-story.html |access-date=10 November 2015}} 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."{{cite book |title=The Fiery Trial |publisher=W.W. Norton & Co. |isbn=978-0-393-34066-2 |date=September 26, 2011}}

Awards and honors

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.{{cite journal |title=Foner and Tsividis Given 1991 Great Teacher Awards |journal=University Record |volume= 17 |number=5 |date= September 27, 1991 |url=http://curecordarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cr19910927-01.2.3&}} In 1995, he was named [https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11072008/profile2.html Scholar of the Year] by the New York Council for the Humanities.{{cite web |title=New York Council for the Humanities |publisher=Nyhumanities.org |url=http://www.nyhumanities.org/ |access-date=June 7, 2013}}

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.{{cite web |title=Laureates by Year – The Lincoln Academy of Illinois |website=The Lincoln Academy of Illinois |language=en-US |url=http://thelincolnacademyofillinois.org/4632-2/#toggle-id-7 |access-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923204516/http://thelincolnacademyofillinois.org/4632-2/#toggle-id-7 |archive-date=September 23, 2015}}

In 2012, Foner received The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement.[https://www.thelincolnforum.org/richard-nelson-current-award-of-achievement The Lincoln Forum]

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.{{cite web |title=Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award Winners |publisher=Organization of American Historians |url=https://www.oah.org/awards/uncategorized-awards/distinguished-service/winners/}}

Personal life

Foner was married to screenwriter Naomi Foner (née Achs) from 1965 to 1977.{{cite web |title=Eric Foner |work=IMDb |url=http://imdb.com/name/nm1197217/}} Since 1982, Foner has been married to historian Lynn Garafola.[http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/newnews/news050205b.html Barnard College Newscenter] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060228013439/http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/newnews/news050205b.html |date=February 28, 2006}} They have a daughter, Daria.[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/fashion/weddings/daria-foner-kjell-wangensteen.html "Daria Foner, Kjell Wangensteen"]. The New York Times, June 12, 2016.

Works

=Books=

{{External media |float=right |video1=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?113124-1/the-story-american-freedom Booknotes interview with Foner on The Story of American Freedom, November 15, 1998], C-SPAN |video2=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?190803-1/forever-free-story-emancipation-reconstruction Presentation by Foner and Joshua Brown on Forever Free, January 12, 2006], C-SPAN |video3=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?296968-1/the-fiery-trial Presentation by Foner on The Fiery Trial, October 27, 2010], C-SPAN |video4=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?301645-7/the-fiery-trial Interview with Foner on The Fiery Trial, September 24, 2011], C-SPAN |video5=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?301645-6/the-fiery-trial Presentation by Foner on The Fiery Trial, September 24, 2011], C-SPAN |video6=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?324420-1/after-words-eric-foner After Words interview with Foner on Gateway to Freedom, March 21, 2015], C-SPAN |video7=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?328440-1/underground-railroad Presentation by Foner on Gateway to Freedom, September 30, 2015], C-SPAN |video8=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?464679-1/eric-foner-discusses-the-founding Presentation by Foner on The Second Founding, October 2, 2019], C-SPAN}}

{{cite book |title=Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War |year=1995 |orig-year=1970 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-509497-8}} Reissued with a new preface.{{cite book |title=Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men |isbn=978-0-19-509497-8 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=April 20, 1995 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HUqJPUyS83AC}}
{{cite book |title=America's Black Past: A Reader in Afro-American History |year=1970 |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/americasblackpas00fone |url-access=registration}}, editor{{cite book |title=America's black past |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=1970 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=9780060421151 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LDwOAQAAMAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=Nat Turner |year=1971 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |location=Englewood Cliffs, N.J. |isbn=978-0-13-933143-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/natturner0000fone}}, editor{{cite book |title=Nat Turner |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=1971 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |isbn=9780139331435 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oTcSAAAAYAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=Tom Paine and Revolutionary America |year=1976 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-501986-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/tompainerevoluti00fone}}{{cite book |title=Tom Paine and Revolutionary America |isbn=978-0-19-517486-1 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyFF1M8_VDAC}}
{{cite book |title=Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War |year=1980 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-502781-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/politicsideology00fone}}{{cite book |title=Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War |isbn=978-0-19-972708-7 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=October 2, 1980 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rQSYk-LWTxcC}}
{{cite book |title=Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy |year=1983 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |location=Baton Rouge |isbn=978-0-8071-1118-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/nothingbutfreedo00eric |url-access=registration}}{{cite book |title=Nothing But Freedom |isbn=978-0-8071-3525-9 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=September 2007 |publisher=LSU Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F0ay2hkUZiwC}}
{{cite book |title=Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 |year=1988 |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-015851-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780060158514}} Political history; and winner, in 1989, of the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Avery O. Craven Prize, and the Lionel Trilling Prize. Updated edition published in 2014 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
{{cite book |title=A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863–1877 |year=1990 |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-096431-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofre00eric}} An abridgement of Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.{{cite book |title=A Short History of Reconstruction |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-096431-3 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=January 10, 1990 |url=https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofre00eric |url-access=registration}}
{{cite book |title=A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |last2=Mahoney |first2=Olivia |year=1990 |publisher=Chicago Historical Society |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-393-02755-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/housedividedamer0000fone |url-access=registration}}{{cite book |title=A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |last2=Mahoney |first2=Olivia |year=1990 |publisher=Chicago Historical Society |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-393-02755-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4AO9QgAACAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=The Reader's Companion to American History |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |last2=Garraty |first2=John Arthur |author2link=John A. Garraty |year=1991 |publisher=Houghton-Mifflin |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-395-51372-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/readerscompanion00fone |url-access=registration}}{{cite book |title=The Reader's Companion to American History |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |last2=Garraty |first2=John Arthur |author2link=John A. Garraty |year=1991 |publisher=Houghton-Mifflin |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-395-51372-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/readerscompanion00fone |url-access=registration}}
{{cite book |title=The Tocsin of Freedom: The Black Leadership of Radical Reconstruction |year=1992 |publisher=Gettysburg College |location=Gettysburg, Pa.}}{{cite web |title=The tocsin of freedom |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=1992 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FZENogEACAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America |year=1994 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-952266-8}}{{cite book |title=Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America (Inaugural Lectures) (University of Oxford) |via= Amazon.com: Books |isbn=978-0-19-952266-8 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=1994 |publisher= Clarendon Press}}
{{cite book |title=America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |last2=Mahoney |first2=Olivia |year=1995 |publisher=HarperPerennial |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-055346-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/americasreconstr00fone}}{{cite book |title=America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |last2=Mahoney |first2=Olivia |date=June 1, 1997 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-2234-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YNpHv2LQ8nYC}}
{{cite book |title=Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction |year=1996 |edition=rev. |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |location=Baton Rouge |isbn=978-0-8071-2082-8}}{{cite book |title=Freedom's Lawmakers |isbn=978-0-19-507406-2 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=1993 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F2MYAAAAIAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=The New American History |year=1997 |edition=rev. |publisher=Temple University Press |location=Philadelphia |isbn=978-1-56639-551-9}}, editor{{cite book |title=The New American History |isbn=978-1-56639-552-6 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=1997 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J7hnUHplC7wC}}
{{cite book |title=The Story of American Freedom |year=1998 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-04665-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/storyofamericanf00fone}}{{cite book |title=The story of American freedom |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=1994 |isbn=9780799215946 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oLJ1AAAAMAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World |year=2002 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8090-9704-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/whoownshistoryre00fone}}{{cite book |title=Who Owns History? |isbn=978-1-4299-2392-7 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=April 16, 2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3I-Z8KW5REC}}
{{cite book |title=Give Me Liberty!: An American History |year=2004 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-97872-8}} A survey of United States history, published with companion volumes of documents.{{cite book |title=Give Me Liberty! |isbn=978-0-393-92782-5 |date=December 1, 2005 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |publisher=W.W. Norton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OTGXGyeVdPEC}}
Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, {{ISBN|978-0-393-92503-6}} (vol. 1), and {{ISBN|978-0-393-92504-3}} (2 vols.).{{cite book |title=Voices of Freedom |isbn=978-0-393-92503-6 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=2004 |publisher=W.W. Norton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QQCFNwAACAAJ}}{{cite book |title=Voices of Freedom |isbn=978-0-393-93108-2 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=2008 |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BrTtAAAAMAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction |year=2005 |publisher=Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-0-375-40259-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/foreverfreestory00fone}}{{cite book |title=Forever Free |publisher=Knopf |isbn=978-0-375-40259-3 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=2005 |url=https://archive.org/details/foreverfreestory00fone |url-access=registration}}
{{cite book |title=Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and his World |year=2008 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-06756-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780393067569}}, editor{{cite book |title=Our Lincoln |isbn=978-0-393-33705-1 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |year=2009 |publisher=Norton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gRF-PwAACAAJ}}
{{cite book |title=The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery |year=2010 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York}}{{cite book |title=The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery |isbn=978-0-393-08082-7 |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=September 26, 2011 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=earytjxi6pEC}}
{{cite book |title=Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad |year=2015 |publisher=W.W. Norton & Co. |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-24407-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/gatewaytofreedom0000fone |url-access=registration}}
{{cite book |title=Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History |year=2017 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-78453-769-2}}
{{cite book |title=The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution |year=2019 |publisher=W. W. Norton |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-65258-1}}

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

=Selected articles=

{{cite journal |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Radical Individualism in America: Revolution to Civil War |journal=Literature of Liberty |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=1–31 |date=July–September 1978 |url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=909&chapter=99730&layout=html&Itemid=27}}
{{cite journal |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=The New View of Reconstruction |journal=American Heritage |volume=34 |issue=6 |date=October–November 1983 |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/content/new-view-reconstruction}}
{{cite journal |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? |journal=History Workshop Journal |volume=17 |issue= 17 |pages=57–80 |date=Spring 1984 |jstor=4288545 |doi=10.1093/hwj/17.1.57}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=The South's Inner Civil War |work=American Heritage |volume=40 |issue=2 |date=March 1989 |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/content/south%E2%80%99s-inner-civil-war-0 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131218233100/http://www.americanheritage.com/content/south%E2%80%99s-inner-civil-war-0 |archive-date=December 18, 2013}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Rebel Yell |work=The Nation |date=January 27, 2000 |url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000214/foner}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Changing History |work=The Nation |date= September 5, 2002 |url=http://ericfoner.com/articles/090502nation.html}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=The Century, A Nation's Eye View |work=The Nation |date=December 10, 2002 |url=http://ericfoner.com/articles/121002nation.html}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Not All Freedom Is Made In America |work=The New York Times |date=April 13, 2003 |url=http://ericfoner.com/articles/041303nytimes.html}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Dare Call It Treason |work=The Nation |date=June 2, 2003 |url=http://ericfoner.com/articles/060203nation.html}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Diversity Over Justice |work=The Nation |date=June 26, 2003 |url=http://ericfoner.com/articles/072603nation.html}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Rethinking American History in a Post-9/11 World |work=History News Network |date=September 6, 2004 |url=http://ericfoner.com/articles/090604hnn.html}}
{{cite web |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Expert Report of Eric Foner: from Gratz, et al. v. Bollinger, et al. |date=2006 |url=http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/expert/foner.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060829030100/http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/expert/foner.html |archive-date=August 29, 2006}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=He's the Worst Ever |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=December 3, 2006 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/01/AR2006120101509.html}} Column on George W. Bush.
Foner, Eric (2008). "Lincoln and Colonization", in Foner, Eric, ed., Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World. W. W. Norton & Co.
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=If Lincoln Hadn't Died... |work=American Heritage |volume=58 |issue=6 |date=Winter 2009 |url=https://www.americanheritage.com/if-lincoln-hadnt-died |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219142052/http://www.americanheritage.com/content/if-lincoln-hadn%E2%80%99t-died?page=show |archive-date=2014-02-19}}
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=The Civil War in 'Postracial' America |work=The Nation |date=October 10, 2011 |url=http://ericfoner.com/articles/101011nation.html |access-date=February 7, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001073757/http://ericfoner.com/articles/101011nation.html |archive-date=October 1, 2011}}
Foner, Eric (2011). "Abraham Lincoln, Colonization, and the Rights of Black Americans", in Richard Follett, Eric Foner, and Walter Johnson, Slavery's Ghost: The Problem of Freedom in the Age of Emancipation, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
{{cite journal |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=The Supreme Court and the History of Reconstruction – and Vice-Versa |journal=Columbia Law Review |volume=112 |issue=7 |pages=1585–1606 |publisher=Columbia Law School |jstor=41708159 |date=November 2012 |url=http://columbialawreview.org/the-supreme-court-and-the-history-of-reconstruction-and-vice-versa/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117015834/http://columbialawreview.org/the-supreme-court-and-the-history-of-reconstruction-and-vice-versa/ |archive-date=November 17, 2015}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20151117015028/http://columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/1585-1606.pdf Pdf.]
{{cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=The Emancipation of Abe Lincoln |work=The New York Times |date=January 1, 2013 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/opinion/the-emancipation-of-abe-lincoln.html?ref=opinion}}
Foner, Eric, "The Corrupt Bargain" (review of Alexander Keyssar, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?, Harvard, 2020, 544 pp., {{ISBN|978 0 674 66015 1}}; and Jesse Wegman, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College, St Martin's Press, 2020, 304 pp., {{ISBN|978 1 250 22197 1}}), London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 10 (May 21, 2020), pp. 3, 5–6. Foner concludes (p. 6): "Rooted in distrust of ordinary citizens and, like so many other features of American life, in the institution of slavery, the electoral college is a relic of a past the United States should have abandoned long ago."
Foner, Eric, [https://www.thenation.com/article/society/liberty-is-sweet-woody-holton/ "Whose Revolution?: The history of the United States' founding from below"] (review of Woody Holton, Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, Simon & Schuster, 2021, 800 pp.), The Nation, vol. 314, no. 8 (18–25 April 2022), pp. 32–37. Highlighted are the struggles and tragic fates of America's Indians and Black slaves. For example, "In 1779 [George] Washington dispatched a contingent of soldiers to upstate New York to burn Indian towns and crops and seize hostages 'of every age and sex.' The following year, while serving as governor of Virginia, [Thomas] Jefferson ordered troops under the command of George Rogers Clark to enter the Ohio Valley and bring about the expulsion or 'extermination' of local Indians." (pp. 34–35.)
Foner, Eric, "The Little Man's Big Friends" (review of Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, Basic, 2022, 497 pp., {{ISBN|978 1 5416 7280 2}}), London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 11 (1 June 2023), pp. 29–30. "More than half a century after he stood in the 'schoolhouse door', the ghost of George Wallace still haunts American politics." (final sentence of the review, p. 30.)
(Additional articles and book reviews are available at [http://ericfoner.com/articles/index.html EricFoner.com])

References

External links

[http://www.ericfoner.com/ EricFoner.com] – Professor Foner's homepage
[http://isbn.nu/aisbn/foner%20eric Books written by Eric Foner or edited or introduced by him]
[http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/efonerbibliography.htm American Historical Association] – Bibliography of Foner's Books
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060327155543/http://www.fathom.com/feature/121845/ Fathom Source for Online Learning Foner discusses influential history books he has read.]
[http://www.films42.com/feature/november_feature.asp Excerpt from Eric Foner essay] on the John Sayles film, Matewan in the book Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies edited by historian Mark C. Carnes
[http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-radosh071002.asp The Left's Lion: Eric Foner's History] – by Ronald Radosh
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060829030100/http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/expert/foner.html Expert report] by Eric Foner for University of Michigan Affirmative Action cases
{{Internet Archive film clip|id=openmind_ep452|description="The Open Mind – A Historian's 'Story of American Freedom,' Part I (1999)"}}
{{Internet Archive film clip|id=openmind_ep453|description="The Open Mind – A Historian's 'Story of American Freedom,' Part II (1999)"}}

=Lectures=

Lectures from "The Civil War and Reconstruction" course series (videos): [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSuwqsAnJMtyg3ROpOADVoW1NV5kmskFM 1850–1861], [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSuwqsAnJMtxQzYD78gR_17YLH4A3wXHP 1861–1865], [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSuwqsAnJMtypyVdc5V3dz9yWo6pIrGvT 1865–1890]
[http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/eric_foner_2009_who_owns_histo/ Eric Foner lecture "Who Owns History?" from the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar (audio recording)]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20050525023336/http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/263/ "The Story of American Freedom: 1776–2005"] (video): MIT SPURS/Humphrey Program sponsored lecture by Eric Foner from the series "Myths About America."

=Interviews=

Interviews with Foner on Democracy Now! about his 2015 book [http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Gateway-to-Freedom/ Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad] (et al.):
[http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/11/gateway_to_freedom_historian_eric_foner part 1], begins ~35:38 in [http://traffic.libsyn.com/democracynow/dn2015-0311-1.mp3 audio] and [http://publish.dvlabs.com/democracynow/ipod/dn2015-0311.mp4 video]
[http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2015/3/11/civil_war_historian_eric_foner_on part 2]: [http://traffic.libsyn.com/democracynow/wx2015-0311_foner.mp3 audio], [http://publish.dvlabs.com/democracynow/ipod/wx2015-0311_foner.mp4 video]
[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/eric-foner-interview-reconstruction-slavery/ The Second American Revolution: Historian Eric Foner on slavery, freedom, and contemporary US politics]. Jacobin. March 28, 2015.
{{C-SPAN|47697}}
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9x50CH47FE On Contact: Creative Forgetfulness with Eric Foner] (interviewed by Chris Hedges). RT America on YouTube, September 18, 2017