Eric Foner

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
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    (m. 1965; div. 1977)​
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    (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)

Eric Foner (/ˈfoʊnər/; 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.[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]

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]

  1. ^ List of all Testbank for Give Me Liberty! An American History Open anatomyphysiologybank.
  2. ^ Snyder, Timothy, Law or Fear, The Supreme Court Chooses, Thinking about..., Substack, February 7, 2024
  3. ^ 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. Archived from the original on May 19, 2011.
  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.