Reckoning with History: Unfinished Stories of American Freedom

Reckoning with History brings together original essays from a diverse group of historians who consider how writing about the past can engage with the urgent issues of the present. The contributors-all former students of the distinguished Columbia University historian Eric Foner-explore the uses and politics of history through key episodes across a wide range of struggles for freedom. They shed new light on how different groups have defined and fought for freedom throughout American history, as well as the ways in which the ideal of freedom remains unrealized today. Covering a broad range of topics, these essays offer insight into how historians practice their craft in different ways and illuminate what it means to be a socially and politically engaged historian.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction, by Jim Downs, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, T.K. Hunter, and Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Part I: Archives
1. Looking for Ona Judge: An Unfinished Story of Freedom, by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
2. “Like People in History”: Why Social History Matters to the LGBT Community, by Jim Downs
Part II: Revisions
3. American Founders Reconsidered: The Case of Thomas Jefferson and Henry Christophe, by Ashli White
4. The Civil War, Slavery, and the Problem of Neutrality, by April E. Holm
5. Historians, Lincoln, and “the Ruining of America," by Matthew Taylor Raffety
6. In Search of the Costs of Segregation, by Elizabeth A. Herbin-Triant
Part III: History Matters
7. Why Historical Film Matters, by Kellie Carter Jackson
8. A Mob Museum Matters, by Michael Green
9. On Living History and Stories Unfinished, by Timothy Patrick McCarthy
10. In the Matter of Worth: The Value of Black Lives and the Law, by T.K. Hunter
Epilogue: Eric Foner: Historian of American Freedom, by Katrina vanden Heuvel
Contributors
Index

About the Author :
Jim Downs is the Gilder Lehrman–National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College. He is also the editor of the journal Civil War History.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar is the Charles and Mary Beard Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University. She serves as the national director of the Association of Black Women Historians.

T.K. Hunter (1956–2018) was a historian of slavery and freedom in the Atlantic world who taught a wide variety of courses at Western Connecticut State University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Montclair State University, Horace Mann School, Manhattan College, Brooklyn College, the New School, and City College of New York.

Timothy Patrick McCarthy holds a joint faculty appointment at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also the Stanley Paterson Professor of American History in the Boston Clemente Course in the Humanities.

Review :
To recover a long-buried past in the archives is to experience the most extraordinary joy. But, as Reckoning with History shows so beautifully, doing true justice to the past is at the real heart of what it means to be a historian. This moving volume reminds us all why the writing of history matters so very much to the world we live in and to the one we hope yet to make. I love these essays. They are among the best ever written about the craft of history writing, the indispensability of creating and using archives, as well as the power of hindsight and new perspective to reconsider the meaning of the past. This brilliant anthology is perfect for this moment, just when we need to understand more than ever how American history becomes part of the public narrative of who we are. Reckoning with History is a celebration and testament to how one’s changing social and political commitments can—and indeed must—inform one’s historical work, as modeled by Eric Foner. The editors have put together a timely and insightful group of essays about why history matters and why engaging with the public should matter to historians. Reckoning with History: Unfinished Stories of American Freedom transports the reader from the mundane names, dates, and events often associated with history class and into the world of the professional historian, opening students’ eyes to a world of research, interpretation, discussion, argumentation, and revision. By doing so, the authors of its well-written essays connect their thought-provoking work to contemporary social, cultural, and political events.