Eric Foner on the Reconstruction’s Constitution

Professor Foner discusses his book “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.” By looking at the history of debate and aftermath of each Post-War Amendments, Prof. Foner examines how each sought to permanently end American Slavery.

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, is one of this country’s most prominent historians. He received his doctoral degree at Columbia under the supervision of Richard Hofstadter. He is one of only two persons to serve as president of the three major professional organizations: the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians, and one of a handful to have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes in the same year.

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. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Foner is the most frequently cited author on college syllabi for history courses.[1]

Foner is a leading contemporary historian of the Reconstruction period, having published Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 in 1989 and more than 10 other books on the topic.


The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library’s 1619 Project discussion group meets every second Thursday of the month. We discuss how the legacy of slavery remains a dominant factor of American political, cultural, and social spheres. The library program centers on the articles included in the New York Times Special Sunday Magazine dated August 20, 2019.
The program began in October 2019 and has had over 500 people participate. All interviews done by John Piche’.

For upcoming programs, additional readings, and resource lists please visit Heights Library’s 1619 Project Discussion page https://heightslibrary.org/services/1619-project/
#1619Project #slavery #1619Projectdiscussion #1619

Music by Controller 7
https://controller7.bandcamp.com/

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