Philip S. Foner – Marxist Historian

Description

Philip S. Foner was one of the most prolific, celebrated, and maligned, historians of the twentieth century. In 1941, at a time of anti-communist fervor, he was removed from his teaching position at City College-New York. Robbed of a full-time academic position until 1967, he continued to publish groundbreaking manuscripts resurrecting long forgotten individuals and events. His History of the Labor Movement in the United States stands as a monumental accomplishment highlighting the grassroots struggles of rank-and-file trade unionists.

However, Foner wasn’t just a labor historian. He also published a five volume collection of the Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass; he edited the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson; he wrote on labor and the Vietnam war; he published books on Women and the American Labor Movement. He was an internationalist, who challenged academia to think and write about ordinary, working class people in all of their diversity.

This volume collects, for the first time, a Remembrance from Laura and Elizabeth Foner, Phillip Foner’s daughters; two original essays on Foner’s unique contributions to African American History and Labor History; an essay on how Foner’s Bibliography came into existence and how many in the historical profession continue to ignore his contributions; Foner’s Bibliography; and a short selection of Foner’s writings from the Daily Worker and Daily World.

From the 1930s through the 1980s, until his passing in 1994, Philip S. Foner redefined what it meant to be a Marxist Historian. This volume, edited by Paul Mishler and Tony Pecinovsky, celebrates his life and legacy, and encourages a new generation of readers to explore Philip Foner’s contributions.