The Fiery Trial, Eric Foner
The Fiery Trial, Eric Foner
1 Rating(s)
List: $23.49 | Sale: $16.45
Club: $11.74

The Fiery Trial
Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery

Author: Eric Foner

Narrator: Norman Dietz

Unabridged: 18 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/12/2010


Synopsis

In this landmark work of deep scholarship and insight, Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner begins with Lincoln's youth in Indiana and Illinois and follows the trajectory of his career across an increasingly tense and shifting political terrain from Illinois to Washington, D.C. Although "naturally anti-slavery" for as long as he can remember, Lincoln scrupulously holds to the position that the Constitution protects the institution in the original slave states. But the political landscape is transformed in 1854 when the Kansas-Nebraska Act makes the expansion of slavery a national issue.

A man of considered words and deliberate actions, Lincoln navigates the dynamic politics deftly, taking measured steps, often along a path forged by abolitionists and radicals in his party. Lincoln rises to leadership in the new Republican Party by calibrating his politics to the broadest possible antislavery coalition. As president of a divided nation and commander in chief at war, displaying a similar compound of pragmatism and principle, Lincoln finally embraces what he calls the Civil War's "fundamental and astounding" result: the immediate, uncompensated abolition of slavery and recognition of blacks as American citizens.

Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.

About Eric Foner

Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his BA and PhD. He has written a number of books on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America, including Forever Free and Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men. 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, Eric 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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Clif on March 12, 2011

This book is a study of American slavery and the political events that shaped Lincoln's attitude toward it. Conventional wisdom would indicate that Abraham Lincoln, known as the Great Emancipator, would also be an advocate of equal rights and racial integration. It turns out that the historical real......more

Goodreads review by Donald on June 09, 2020

This is a Pulitzer Prize winning book specifically about Abraham Lincoln and his evolution about slavery and racism. This is an extensive, almost comprehensive, analysis of these matters. It would serve as a text for an upper level course on such topics. It is written with a master historian's balan......more

Goodreads review by Michael on March 25, 2020

After reading Ron Chernow's Grant, Doris Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and David Herbert Donald's Lincoln, Foner's book about Lincoln and slavery, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery was a little disappointing. I did appreciate the details in how......more

Goodreads review by Bill on June 09, 2022

Was it me or was it the book? I specifically sought out this book because, one, I hadn’t read anything by Eric Foner yet and figured I ought to if I’m aiming to become well-read on all things LIncoln. And two, this is a Pulitzer-, Bancroft-, Lincoln Prize-winning book, so surely it’s got to be great......more

Goodreads review by Steve on June 09, 2014

[URL not allowed] Eric Foner’s “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” was published in 2010 and received the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for history. It was also awarded both the Bancroft Prize and the Lincoln Prize. Foner is a respected historian of the Civil War and......more