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Eric Foner is a professor of history at Columbia University who specializes in nineteenth century American history, the American Civil War and Reconstruction. He is writes frequently about racial, gender and other social issues. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians (1993-94) and the American Historical Association in 2000.

Foner earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from Columbia University in 1963, a second B.A. from Oriel College, Oxford, in 1965, and his Ph.D. in 1969, under the tutelage of Richard Hofstadter at Columbia.

Foner's books include Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970), Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (1976), Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (1980), Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983), Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988), Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (1993), and The Story of American Freedom (1998), and Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (2002). His survey textbook of American history, Give Me Liberty! An American History and a companion volume of documents, Voices of Freedom, appeared in 2004.

Foner reguarly writes Op-Eds for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and several other publications. He is also a member of the editorial board of The Nation.

Foner's political philosophy, which often forms the basis of his historiographical work, may be considered neo-Marxist, and in his youth he was interested in Soviet politics, and in the late 1980s admired Mikhail Gorbachev. These views have given rise to his nickname "Eric the Red" among students. Foner has published opinion pieces in the liberal magazine the Nation. He is also vocal among Civil War historians advocating the removal of Confederate flags from public display. Foner is criticized by political conservatives as un-American for his original and unconventional works that challenge traditional notions of American history.

Quotes attributed to Foner

"I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House."

"The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military,"

Some have incorrectly attributed a call for "a million Mogadishus" to Foner. Though the quote was made at a teach-in in which Foner participated at the onset of the Iraq War, it was said by Nicholas De Genova, Assistant Professor of Latino/a Studies and Anthropology, not Foner. In fact, Foner quickly condemned De Genova’s remarks.

External links

• Eric Foner's homepage
• The Left's Lion: Eric Foner's History by Ronald Radosh
• Who Owns History? - Publisher's page of Foner's book by the same title

• American professors
• Historians