Eric Foner reflects on his life as a historian in this interview with Nawal Arjini at New York Review of Books. A taste: Nawal Arjini: How did you come to specialize in Civil War history? Eric Foner: When I was in college in...
Reconstruction
The Author’s Corner with Anna Koivusalo
Anna Koivusalo is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies at the University of Helsinki. This interview is based on her new book, The Man Who Started the Civil War: James Chesnut, Honor, and Emotion...
The Author’s Corner with Paul Escott
Paul Escott is Reynolds Professor of History Emeritus at Wake Forest University. This interview is based on his new book, Black Suffrage: Lincoln’s Last Goal (University of Virginia Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write Black Suffrage? PE: My two...
Henry E. Hayne represented the promise of Reconstruction. Why don’t we know more about him?
Robert Greene II and Tyler D. Parry are trying to correct that. Here is a taste of their piece on Hayne at The Washington Post: In 1872, Hayne became South Carolina’s secretary of state. This elective position probably provided him...
The 1877 Project?
It sure sounds like the Dunning School to me. Here is Eric Levitz at New York Magazine: In a recent column for The American Conservative, Helen Andrews argues that Reconstruction — that brief slice of the 19th century during which Black Southerners enjoyed extensive political...
The Author’s Corner with Jack Noe
Jack Noe is Teaching Associate at the Queen Mary University of London. This interview is based on his new book, Contesting Commemoration: The 1876 Centennial, Independence Day, and the Reconstruction-Era South (LSU Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write Contesting...
Black Americans have a long history of creating spaces against violent white resistance
Alicia Jackson teaches history at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Here is a taste of her Washington Post piece, “Black Americans have long envisioned and created spaces of sanctuary”: On a plot of land near Toomsboro, Ga., three dozen people...
The Author’s Corner with William Kiser
William Kiser is Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University. This interview is based on his new book, Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). JF: What led you...
The Author’s Corner with Robert S. Levine
Robert S. Levine is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Maryland. This interview is based on his new book, The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021). JF:...
A Third Reconstruction?
Matt Ford gives us a lot to think about in this piece at The New Republic. titled “Our 250-Year Fight for Multiracial Democracy.” A taste: Some scholars and activists, by the same token, break down American history into presidencies or...
The Author’s Corner with Van Gosse
Van Gosse is Professor of History and Chair of Africana Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. This interview is based on his new book, The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (The John...
What Joe Biden can learn about fighting white supremacy from U.S. Grant
In last Sunday’s “Odds and Ends” I called your attention to Casey Michel’s piece at Politico, “What Ulysses Grant Can Teach Joe Biden About Putting Down Violent Insurrection.” Today I want to call your attention to a similar piece at...