What is the free online course offered by the writer of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery?
Eric Foner Eric Foner (born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography, and has been a member of the faculty at the Columbia University Department of History since 1982. Foner is a leading contemporary historian of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, having published "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877" in 1989 and more than 10 other books on the topic. His free online courses on "The Civil War and Reconstruction," published in 2014, are available from Columbia University on ColumbiaX.
Josiah Priest Josiah Priest (1788–1861) was a popular American nonfiction writer of the early 19th century. His books and pamphlets, which presented both standard and speculative history and archaeology sold in the thousands. Although Priest appears to have been poorly educated, he attempted to portray himself as an authority in his books. Priest is often identified as one of the creators of pseudoscientific and pseudohistoric literature. Although his work was widely read and several of his works were published in multiple editions, his books were characterized by theories that were used to justify the violent domination over both the Native American and African-American peoples. Priest's works were among the most overtly racist of his time. Priest's offensive works help set the stage for the genocide of the Trail of Tears and the defense of slavery that contributed to the conflicts of the American Civil War.