Eric Foner

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Eric Foner (born February 7, 1943 in New York City) is the Dewitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He specializes in nineteenth century American history, the American Civil War and Reconstruction. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians (1993-94) and the American Historical Association in 2000.

Professor Foner earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from Columbia University in 1963, a second B.A. from Oriel College, Oxford, in 1965, and his Ph.D. in 1969, under the tutelage of Richard Hofstadter at Columbia. His father was historian Jack D. Foner. Philip Foner, a historian and communist political activist, and Moe Foner, a labor union organizer, were among his uncles. His sister Naomi Foner is the mother of actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

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Career

He serves on the editorial boards of Past and Present and The Nation. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, London Review of Books, and many other publications, and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including Charlie Rose, Book Notes, and All Things Considered, and in historical documentaries on PBS and The History Channel. He was the on-camera historian for "Freedom: A History of Us," on PBS in 2003.

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Exhibitions

Professor Foner has been the co-curator, with Olivia Mahoney, of two prize-winning exhibitions on American history: A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln, which opened at the Chicago Historical Society in 1990, and America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War, which opened at the Virginia Historical Society in 1995 and traveled to several other locations. He revised the presentation of American history at the Hall of Presidents at Disney World, and Meet Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland, and has served as consultant to several National Parks Service historical sites and historical museums.

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Prizes

Professor Foner is a winner of the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates, and was named Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities in 1995. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy, and holds an honorary doctorate from Iona College. He has taught at Cambridge University as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, Oxford University as Harmsworth Professor of American History, and Moscow State University as Fulbright Professor.

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Criticism

Professor Foner's work has been praised by newspapers and individuals at both ends of the political spectrum. Presidential advisor Karl Rove has described Foner as one of his favorite authors.[1] Journalist Nat Hentoff called his Story of American Freedom "an indispensable book that should be read in every school in the land."[2] "Eric Foner is one of the most prolific, creative, and influential American historians of the past 20 years," says the Washington Post. His work is "brilliant, important" says the Los Angeles Times.[3]

Some have been less flattering. Theodore Draper has acknowledged Foner as "one of our most distinguished historians") but criticized him as "a partisan of radical sects and opinions."[4] Professor John Patrick Diggins of the City University of New York, who describes Foner as a neo-Marxist, has called him "both an unabashed apologist for the Soviet system and an unforgiving historian of America."[5] David Horowitz described as "Anti-American" a Columbia University teach-in that Professor Foner helped organize in 2003, and criticized him for quoting Paul Robeson at the event.[6] Daniel Pipes identified Foner among the major "Profs who hate America," citing the historian's criticism of the Iraq war.[7] Bernard Goldberg listed Foner as #75 in his 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America in 2005.

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Quotations

"Like all momentous events, September 11 is a remarkable teaching opportunity. But only if we use it to open rather than to close debate. Critical intellectual analysis is our responsibility -- to ourselves and to our students." "Rethinking American History in a Post-9/11 World" History News Network

"[S]uccessful teaching rests both on a genuine and selfless concern for students and on the ability to convey to them a love of history." Eric Foner, Who Owns History (2002: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York), page 7.

"In a global age, the forever-unfinished story of American freedom must become a conversation with the entire world, not a complacent monologue with ourselves." "American Freedom in a Global Age" Presidential Address to the American Historical Association annual meeting January 2001.

"I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." "11 September" London Review of Books

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Works by Foner

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Articles

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Books

  • Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970; reissued with new preface 1995)
  • Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (1976)
  • Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (1980)
  • Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983)
  • Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988)
  • "The Reader's Companion to American History" (with John A. Garraty, 1991)
  • Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (1993)
  • The Story of American Freedom (1998)
  • Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (2002)
  • Give Me Liberty! An American History (a survey text of American history) and a companion volume of documents, Voices of Freedom (2004).
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External links

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