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Book Cover for: The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, Eric Foner

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery

Eric Foner

Reader Score

83%

83% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 8 reviews on

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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.

Book Details

  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publish Date: Sep 26th, 2011
  • Pages: 448
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.20in - 5.50in - 1.20in - 0.94lb
  • EAN: 9780393340662
  • Categories: United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877)Presidents & Heads of StateSlavery

About the Author

Foner, Eric: - Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. 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; and The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

Do we need yet another book on Lincoln?... Well, yes, we do if the book is by so richly informed a commentator as Eric Foner. Foner tackles what would seem to be an obvious topic, Lincoln and slavery, and manages to cast new light on it.... Because of his broad-ranging knowledge of the 19th century, Foner is able to provide the most thorough and judicious account of Lincoln's attitudes toward slavery that we have.--David S. Reynolds
Starred Review. Original and compelling .In the vast library on Lincoln, Foner s book stands out as the most sensible and sensitive reading of Lincoln s lifetime involvement with slavery and the most insightful assessment of Lincoln s and indeed America s imperative to move toward freedom lest it be lost. An essential work for all Americans. "
Moving and rewarding. . . . A master historian at work. --David W. Blight"
No one else has written about [Lincoln's] trajectory of change with such balance, fairness, depth of analysis, and lucid precision of language. --James M. McPherson"
Do we need another book on Lincoln? Yes, we do if the book is by so richly informed a commentator as Eric Foner. --David S. Reynolds"
While many thousands of books deal with Lincoln and slavery, Eric Foner has written the definitive account of this crucial subject, illuminating in a highly original and profound way the interactions of race, slavery, public opinion, politics, and Lincoln's own character that led to the wholly improbable uncompensated emancipation of some four million slaves. Even seasoned historians will acquire fresh and new perspectives from reading The Fiery Trial. --David Brion Davis, author of Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World"