Eric Foner

Professor Eric Forner is a leading historian on the American Civil War and Reconstruction and is the De Witt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He is also an expert on slavery, 19th-century America, political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, and historiography. Professor Forner is one of only two persons to serve as President of the following history organizations: Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians. Formerly, he was a professor of history at CUNY, the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, and Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University. His book, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution l863-l877, won the Bancroft Prize, Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History, Parkman Prize, Lionel Trilling Award, and Owsley Prize. Another successful book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, won the Pulitzer Prize for history, Bancroft Prize, and Lincoln Prize. Professor Forner curated at the Chicago History Museum, A House Divided: American in the Age of Lincoln, which received multiple awards.