Appointed the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, Foner specializes in nineteenth century American history, the American Civil War, slavery, and Reconstruction. He served as president of the Organization of American Historians in (1993-94), and of the American Historical Association (2000).
From 1973-1982, he served as a Professor in the Department of History at City College and Graduate Center at City University of New York. In 1976-1977, he was a visiting professor of American History at Princeton University. In 1980 he was Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge.
Foner serves on the editorial boards of
Past and Present and
The Nation. He has written for
The New York Times,
Washington Post,
Los Angeles Times,
London Review of Books, and other publications. In addition, he has spoken about history on television and radio, including
Charlie Rose,
Book Notes, and
All Things Considered, and appeared in historical documentaries on PBS and The History Channel. Foner also contributed an essay and conversation with John Sayles in
Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies, published by the Society of American Historians in 1995. He was the historian in
Freedom: A History of US on PBS in 2003.
Exhibitions
With Olivia Mahoney, chief curator at the Chicago History Museum Foner curated two prize-winning exhibitions on American history:
A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln, which opened at the Chicago History Museum in 1990, and
America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War, a traveling exhibit that opened at the Virginia Historical Society in 1995. He revised the presentation of American history at the Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland, and has served as consultant to several National Park Service historical sites and historical museums.
Foner served as an expert witness for the University of Michigan's defense of affirmative action in its undergraduate and law school admissions (
Gratz v. Bollinger and
Grutter v. Bollinger) considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003.
Prizes
In 1991, Foner won the Great Teacher Award from the
Society of Columbia Graduates. In 1995, he was named Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the British Academy and holds an honorary doctorate from Iona College. He has taught at Cambridge University as
Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, at Oxford University as
Harmsworth Professor of American History and at Moscow State University as
Fulbright Professor. In 2007, the alumni of Columbia College voted to give him the
John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement.
Praise
Journalist Nat Hentoff called his
Story of American Freedom "an indispensable book that should be read in every school in the land." "Eric Foner is one of the most prolific, creative, and influential American historians of the past 20 years," according to a write-up in the
Washington Post. His work is "brilliant, important" a reviewer wrote in the
Los Angeles Times.
Historian Michael Perman notes Foner's significance as an historian of the Reconstruction era:
And now, with the appearance of Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, a massive volume of 690 pages, Foner has established himself as the leading authority on the Reconstruction period. This book is not simply a distillation of the secondary literature; it is a masterly account - broad in scope as well as rich in detail and insight.
Criticism
In a review of
The Story of American FreedomTheodore Draper in the
New York Review of Books, Draperwrote that "If the story of American freedom is told largely from the perspective of blacks and women, especially the former, it is not going to be a pretty tale. Yet most Americans thought of themselves not only as free but as the freest people in the world.". John Patrick Diggins of the City University of New York wrote that Foner's
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, was a "magisterial" and "moving" narrative, but compared Foner's "unforgiving" view of America for its racist past to his notably different views on the fall of communism and Soviet history.
Conservatives have attacked Foner. David Horowitz labeled as "anti-American" a Columbia University teach-in that Foner helped organize in 2003; Daniel Pipes named Foner among the "Profs who hate America" (for the historian's opposition to the Iraq War).