Synopses & Reviews
From the Revolution to our own time, freedom has been America's strongest cultural bond and its most perilous fault line, a birthright for some Americans and a cruel mockery for others. Eric Foner takes freedom not as a timeless truth but as a value whose meaning and scope have been contested throughout American history. His sweeping narrative shows freedom to have been shaped not only in congressional debates and political treatises but also on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and bedrooms, by our acknowledged leaders and by former slaves, union organizers, freedom riders, and women's rights activists.
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" " Fred Anderson
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" " Los Angeles Times Book Review
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" " Pauline Maier New York Times Book Review
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" " Mark Greif Boston Sunday Globe
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" " Herbert Mitgang Newsday
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" " Columbus Dispatch
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" " Seattle Times
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"Brilliant, important.... [A] superb book." Fred Anderson
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"Succinct, information-packed, wonderfully readable.... An excellent choice for serious readers." Los Angeles Times Book Review
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"Foner tackles the whole drama of American history. He succeeds, with far-reaching intelligence and a genial respect for his reader." Pauline Maier New York Times Book Review
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"A masterful book... that covers two centuries of courage, violence, achievement, and unfulfilled dreams in the quest for liberty." Mark Greif Boston Sunday Globe
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"A scholarly gem on the evolution of America's most cherished idea." Herbert Mitgang Newsday
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"A thought-provoking look at the historical uses of freedom in the United States." Columbus Dispatch
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"Powerful.... Eric Foner has held up a mirror and asked us as a people to take a good, hard look at ourselves. It is incumbent on us not to turn away." Seattle Times
Synopsis
"Eric Foner's brilliant, important book . . . shows how, having invoked liberty to justify their independence in 1776, Americans have fought ever since over what that freedom means and who may enjoy its blessings."--
Synopsis
A stirring history of America focused on its animating impulse: freedom.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p.333-393.) and index.
About the Author
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, Foner focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America. His most recent book,
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize. His
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, won the Bancroft, Parkman, and
Los Angeles Times Book prizes and remains the standard history of the period. In 2006 Foner received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching at Columbia University. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Society of American Historians.