Volume 55, Number 19 · December 4, 2008
The Historian Who Saw Through America
By James M. McPherson
Diverse Nations: Explorations in the History of Racial and Ethnic Pluralism
by George M. Fredrickson
Paradigm, 304 pp., $86.00; $24.95 (paper; to be published in January 2009)
Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race
by George M. Fredrickson
Harvard University Press, 156 pp., $19.95
For more than thirty years George Fredrickson was a leading historian of race relations and racial ideologies in the United States and other multiracial societies. By a cruel trick of fate, his unexpected death on February 25, 2008, occurred three days before the official publication date of his book on Abraham Lincoln's racial attitudes, Big Enough to Be Inconsistent, and five months before publication of Diverse Nations, a collection of fifteen previously published articles and review essays. Fredrickson's thorough research, original insights, common-sense interpretations, and lucid prose made him a historian's historian as well as a writer who reached a broad audience with several of his books. He will be sorely missed by friends, colleagues, and readers—especially readers of this journal, for which he reviewed dozens of books over the past quarter-century.
Review, 3568 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |