The Second Founding reflects Foner’s rigorously researched, now mainstream view that Reconstruction was 'a massive experiment in interracial democracy'; the changes wrought by the Civil War amendments were the product of decades of debate and so radical that they represented, in the words of one Republican leader, 'a constitutional revolution' ... Foner’s authority and magnetism as a Bancroft- and Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar stem partly from his conviction that history is neither primarily about the past nor...'simply a series of myths and inventions.' The Second Founding reveals how an exemplary historian can plumb The Congressional Globe and other primary sources to capture the ideas and intentions of those who shaped the Civil War amendments. The result is scholarship that is disciplined, powerful and moving ... [an] important book ...
The Second Founding...demonstrates [Foner's] talent at unearthing insights about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, in particular how Americans defined and acted on the ideals of freedom and democracy. It’s a slim volume that synthesizes the vast library of works devoted to Reconstruction. But he uses that rich scholarship to highlight the radicalism of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and how, over the past 150 years, clever and powerful conservatives have diligently sought to undermine their egalitarian promise ... Foner’s new book is also a guide to nearly all of his scholarship, which examines not only the rights and better living conditions gained through extended contests for power but also the ambiguous consequences of what were, as a rule, only partial victories. The sensibility that drives his work was likely born out of his experiences on the left and the frustrations of a period of American radicalism that helped do away with legal apartheid and spearheaded movements for gender equality and the protection of the environment but also failed to mount a serious challenge to the conservative tilt of both major parties ... He expresses these judgments in what another eminent historian, Christopher Lasch, called 'plain style': direct and vivid prose without a trace of specialized language, which anyone with a passing interest in the subject can read, learn from, and enjoy.
... a slender yet potent study that illuminates how the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments...were hammered into the Constitution ... With The Second Founding, Foner offers a taut, absorbing companion piece to his magisterial Reconstruction, published three decades ago ... Foner strikes a note as clear as a bell: We cannot sustain a third founding.
As the dean of Reconstruction studies, Foner is the ideal scholar to produce a history of the three amendments added to the Constitution during the period—amendments so powerful as to justify the book’s title, The Second Founding. He shows how each of them had its origins in the antislavery constitutionalism of the pre–Civil War abolitionist movement. Yet each was also the product of the specific moment in which it was proposed and ratified ... Foner places Reconstruction within the setting of a much older struggle for justice in the antislavery movement, and he sees later campaigns for civil rights as building on their predecessors. He posits an enduring conflict between democracy and equality on the one hand and racism and injustice on the other, and, crucially for Foner, the outcome of that conflict at any given moment comes down to a balance of power, primarily political power.
... short, closely argued ... This is not entirely new intellectual territory, but Mr. Foner makes his case with brio and erudition ... Acute though Mr. Foner’s analysis of the postwar amendments is, readers unfamiliar with the larger political context might want to turn either to Mr. Foner’s own magisterial Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988) or to Douglas R. Egerton ’s excellent The Wars of Reconstruction”(2014).
The Second Founding exhibits the sterling qualities we have come to expect in Foner’s scholarship, particularly the careful, nuanced judgments. Resisting the overwrought pessimism currently fashionable in some parts of the left, he highlights a remarkable episode in which progressive change erupted unexpectedly. Who could have imagined in 1860 that within a decade an African American would replace the defeated president of the Confederacy as the representative of Mississippi in the Senate? But Foner also insists on recognising the strong pull of racism in American affairs.
Foner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning history professor emeritus at Columbia University, has written many books about the Civil War, Reconstruction and slavery, but this one seems particularly attuned to the current political moment ... with this book, we have a compact, cogently argued and only occasionally dense history lesson. The last chapter summarizing key Supreme Court decisions that significantly undermined the amendments can be tough sledding, but well worth the effort.
Foner examines in minute detail the differences between rights and equality as perceived in the Reconstruction era and beyond ... Foner clearly illustrates in case after case how the tangled skeins of misinterpretation, obfuscation and outright disobedience of the three Reconstruction amendments still plague us ... It is to be hoped that Foner’s conscientious presentation of the facts will lead to greater understanding of our history and new, creative approaches.
Foner has a knack for looking at past conflicts through the lens of the present, without allowing the present to distort the past ... reads like Foner’s last valiant attempt to place Reconstruction front and center in the 'public consciousness'...If the book doesn’t succeed, that is not the fault of the author who has told a compelling story with dramatic incidents, colorful historical figures and a sense of compassion ... At times, one wishes the author was less tentative than he is, as when he writes that racism was 'perhaps' the 'most powerful legacy of slavery.' Why the word 'perhaps'? And if racism was indeed the most powerful legacy of slavery, what progress if any has the nation made? ... This book will probably not comfort readers troubled by the present moment, but it will provide them with a clear view of a fractious past, and encourage them, in the words of the Civil Rights movement, 'To keep your eyes on the prize.'
Foner brilliantly shows that the federal government’s actions in the 19th century continue to resonate today ... A must-read for anyone interested in U.S. history.
... [a] lucid legal history and political manifesto ... Readers invested in social equality will find Foner’s guarded optimism about the possibility of judicial activism in this area inspiring, and both casual readers and those well-versed in American legal history will benefit from his clear prose and insightful exploration of constitutional history.
