The story of American freedom
By: Eric Foner.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 422
ISBN-13: 9780393046656
Subjects: Civil rights -- United States -- History; Human rights -- United States -- History; Democracy -- United States -- History; Liberty -- History; United States -- History
Description: Over the course of our history, freedom has been a living truth for some Americans and a cruel mockery for others. In Eric Foner's stirring history, freedom's story is not the simple unfolding of a timeless truth, but an open-ended history of accomplishment and failure. Its impetus lies in the aspirations and sacrifice of millions of Americans, celebrated and anonymous, who have sought freedom's blessings.

Its meaning is shaped not only in congressional debates and political treatises, but on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and bedrooms. Its cast of characters ranges from Thomas Jefferson to Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, from former slaves seeking to breathe real meaning into emancipation to the union organizers, freedom riders, and women's rights advocates of our time.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 333-393) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: The birth of American freedom; title: To call it freedom; title: An empire of liberty; title: The boundaries of freedom in the young republic; title: A new birth of freedom; title: Liberty of contract and its discontents; title: Progressive freedom; title: The birth of civil liberities; title: The New Deal and the redefinition of freedom; title: Fighting for freedom; title: Cold War freedom; title: Sixties freedom; title: Conservative freedom