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From the “preeminent historian of Reconstruction” (New York Times Book Review), an updated abridged edition of Reconstruction, the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern America.
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 one committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans.
This “masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history” (New Republic) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.
From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" (New York Times Book Review), the prize-winning 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 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.
“Gripping and essential.”—Jesse Wegman, New York Times
An authoritative history by the preeminent scholar of the Civil War era, The Second Founding traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism and adoption amidst intense postwar politics to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws. Today these amendments remain strong tools for achieving the American ideal of equality, if only we will take them up.
The leading U.S. history textbook, with a new focus on “Who is an American?”
A powerful text by an acclaimed historian, Give Me Liberty! delivers an authoritative, concise, and integrated American history. In the Sixth Edition, Eric Foner addresses a question that has motivated, divided, and stirred passionate debates: “Who is an American?” With new coverage of issues of inclusion and exclusion—reinforced by new primary source features in the text—Give Me Liberty! strengthens students’ most important historical thinking skills.
The Seagull Edition offers the complete text of the Full Edition in full color and a portable trim size with fewer illustrations and maps and an exceptionally low price. This purchase offers access to the digital ebook only.
The leading U.S. history textbook, with a new focus on “Who is an American?”
A powerful text by an acclaimed historian, Give Me Liberty! delivers an authoritative, concise, and integrated American history. In the Sixth Edition, Eric Foner addresses a question that has motivated, divided, and stirred passionate debates: “Who is an American?” With new coverage of issues of inclusion and exclusion—reinforced by new primary source features in the text—Give Me Liberty! strengthens students’ most important historical thinking skills.
The Seagull Edition offers the complete text of the Full Edition in full color and a portable trim size with fewer illustrations and maps and an exceptionally low price. This purchase offers access to the digital ebook only.
“A masterwork [by] the preeminent historian of the Civil War era.”—Boston Globe
Selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, this landmark work gives us a definitive account of Lincoln's lifelong engagement with the nation's critical issue: American slavery. A master historian, Eric Foner draws Lincoln and the broader history of the period into perfect balance. We see Lincoln, a pragmatic politician grounded in principle, deftly navigating the dynamic politics of antislavery, secession, and civil war. Lincoln's greatness emerges from his capacity for moral and political growth.
The leading U.S. history textbook, with a new focus on “Who is an American?”
A powerful text by an acclaimed historian, Give Me Liberty! delivers an authoritative, concise, and integrated American history. In the Sixth Edition, Eric Foner addresses a question that has motivated, divided, and stirred passionate debates: “Who is an American?” With new coverage of issues of inclusion and exclusion—reinforced by new primary source features in the text—Give Me Liberty! strengthens students’ most important historical thinking skills.
The Brief Edition is 30% shorter than the Full Edition and features a slightly smaller trim size. It shares the same pedagogical features of the Full Edition. This purchase offers access to the digital ebook only.
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.
Eric Foner’s best-selling reader, the best value for the U.S. survey
Voices of Freedom is the only reader with a thematic focus on American freedom. The organization of this enormously popular, compact, and accessible primary source documents collection mirrors the best-selling Give Me Liberty! survey texts. Much more affordable than other readers of its kind, it is an exceptional value in print and ebook formats. The Sixth Edition features new selections that focus on issues of inclusion and exclusion and the question, “Who is an American?”
Eric Foner’s best-selling reader, the best value for the U.S. survey
Voices of Freedom is the only reader with a thematic focus on American freedom. The organization of this enormously popular, compact, and accessible primary source documents collection mirrors the best-selling Give Me Liberty! survey texts. Much more affordable than other readers of its kind, it is an exceptional value in print and ebook formats. The Sixth Edition features new selections that focus on issues of inclusion and exclusion and the question, “Who is an American?”
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.
The leading U.S. history textbook, with a new focus on “Who is an American?”
A powerful text by an acclaimed historian, Give Me Liberty! delivers an authoritative, concise, and integrated American history. In the Sixth Edition, Eric Foner addresses a question that has motivated, divided, and stirred passionate debates: “Who is an American?” With new coverage of issues of inclusion and exclusion—reinforced by new primary source features in the text—Give Me Liberty! strengthens students’ most important historical thinking skills.
The Brief Edition is 30% shorter than the Full Edition and features a slightly smaller trim size. It shares the same pedagogical features of the Full Edition. This purchase offers access to the digital ebook only.
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