The Story of American Freedom

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.

“"Succinct, information-packed, wonderfully readable.... An excellent choice for serious readers."”

"Brilliant, important.... [A] superb book." -- Fred Anderson - Los Angeles Times Book Review
-- Pauline Maier - New York Times Book Review
"Foner tackles the whole drama of American history. He succeeds, with far-reaching intelligence and a genial respect for his reader." -- Mark Greif - Boston Sunday Globe
"A masterful book... that covers two centuries of courage, violence, achievement, and unfulfilled dreams in the quest for liberty." -- Herbert Mitgang - Newsday
"A thought-provoking look at the historical uses of freedom in the United States." -- Seattle Times
"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." -- Raleigh News & Observer

Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, he focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. In 2006 he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University. His most recent books are The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, winner of the Bancroft and Lincoln Prizes and the Pulitzer Prize for History; Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, winner of the New York Historical Society Book Prize; The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution; and the upcoming Our Fragile Freedoms: Essays.

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