Vol. 19 No. 24 · 11 December 1997
pages 22-23 | 2556 words
Eden without the Serpent
Eric Foner
- A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
Weidenfeld, 925 pp, £25.00, October 1997, ISBN 0 297 81569 5
Paul Johnson is one of the most indefatigable writers on either side of the Atlantic. In the past twenty years, the former editor of the New Statesman turned ardent Thatcherite has produced, among other books, The Birth of the Modern (weighing in at more than a thousand pages), Modern Times, a massive chronicle of the 20th century, and lengthy histories of Christianity and Judaism. If succinctness is not his forte, neither is modesty. Johnson’s latest book opens with the claim that it ‘has new and often trenchant things to say about every aspect and period of America’s past’. No one who knows his earlier writings is likely to be surprised by its strengths and weaknesses. For better or worse, A History of the American People is vintage Johnson.
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Letters
Vol. 20 No. 2 · 22 January 1998
From Norman Cantor
Paul Johnson is known as a conservative historian. Eric Foner is known as a Marxist historian, and perhaps the furthest to the left of holders of chairs in American universities of the first rank. You chose Eric Foner to review Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People (LRB, 11 December 1997). Why, other than to make sure you got a very hostile review? If you wanted to get an American professor to review Johnson’s book, there are at least a hundred scholars of stature who are not as far to the left as Foner, although nearly all of them are left of centre. Couldn’t you have chosen one of them?
Eric Foner had an uncle, Philip Foner, who was a Communist and a historian. In the Thirties and Forties Philip used to harangue crowds in Union Square. His books were ignored by academia. He couldn’t get a decent academic appointment. Poor Philip, he was born too soon. Now he could review books for the LRB. Possibly he would have a chair at Columbia University. Time marches on.
Norman Cantor
Sag Harbor, New York
Eric Foner writes: Norman Cantor’s comments about me do not deserve a reply. But since my late uncle cannot defend himself, it is worth noting that Philip Foner ‘couldn’t get’ an academic position not because of the quality of his books – many of which are today deemed indispensable for students of African-American and labour history – but because of McCarthy-era black-listing. Most Americans who respect academic freedom consider that episode a national disgrace.
