Regular readers know my development of seeing abolitionism as a role model movement for sustainability. My next book, almost finishing the final draft, will show the connection deeper than mere analogy or role model.

Readers here and podcast listeners know my conversations with Manisha Sinha, James Oakes, and David Blight and reading their books, and reading Sean Wilentz’s book. Connected with them all is Eric Foner. I’ve met him in person. Since he teaches at Columbia, I had friends who took his courses when I was an undergraduate (technically including Manisha, since I took a class from her too).

I’m about to start reading his books. First I dove into his talks and conversations online. If you are American, love freedom, love learning, or any of the above, you’ll love the conversations below his bio.

Here’s a small fraction of his bio (more here):

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, is one of this country’s most prominent historians. He received his doctoral degree at Columbia under the supervision of Richard Hofstadter. He is one of only two persons to serve as president of the three major professional organizations: the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians, and one of a handful to have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes in the same year.

Professor Foner’s publications have concentrated on the intersections of intellectual, political and social history, and the history of American race relations. His best-known books are: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970; reissued with new preface 1995) Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (1976); Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983); Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988) (winner, among other awards, of the Bancroft Prize, Parkman Prize, and Los Angeles Times Book Award; The Reader’s Companion to American History (with John A. Garraty, 1991); The Story of American Freedom (1998); Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (2002); his survey textbook of American history, Give Me Liberty! An American History (2004); The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) (winner, among other awards, of the Bancroft Prize, Pulitzer Prize for History, and The Lincoln Prize); and Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, ( 2015) (winner of the American History Book Prize by the New-York Historical Society. His latest book is The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019). His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

And one with Jim Oakes that came up in the search. I watched it before, but have read thousands of pages, watched hours of video, and listened to hours of audio since then about slavery and abolition, so understood it much better:

EDIT: more with Jim Oakes:

• ← I hear young people seethe with rage at old people, especially boomers
• Check out this review of my workshop on sustainability leadership →