The Second Founding, Eric Foner
The Second Founding, Eric Foner
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Second Founding
How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

Author: Eric Foner

Narrator: Donald Corren

Unabridged: 7 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 09/17/2019


Synopsis

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.

“Gripping and essential.”—New York Times

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 Colleen

Eric Foner is known as "the expert" on Reconstruction. In this book, he expands that reputation to include the Civil War amendments. Thoroughly researched and intelligently written, this short book tells the story of the rocky road to pass the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and how they have been......more

Goodreads review by Joseph

A good solid overview of the Reconstruction amendments. The author argues that the battles begun in the nineteenth century are still being fought today. And I agree with him. Prejudice and discrimination are still immense forces of darkness in the modern world. All we can do as a people is fight for......more

Goodreads review by Ryan

We shouldn’t forget that the original United States Constitution, for all its brilliance, did explicitly condone the practice of slavery. For example, the “three-fifths compromise” counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating state representation in Congress, while Artic......more