烈火中的考验 (2010)

《烈火中的考验：亚伯拉罕·林肯与美国奴隶制》（英语：The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery），埃里克·方纳著，2010年出版，获班克罗夫特奖、普利策奖和林肯奖。中译本于2017年3月出版，于留振译。同年埃里克·方纳在北京举行的《烈火中的考验》新书发布会与读者见面。

外部来源

The Fiery Trial-Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery is a 2010 biography of Abraham Lincoln written by the American historian Eric Foner. It focuses on the evolution of Lincoln's stance on slavery in the United States.

The Fiery Trial, which derives its title from Lincoln's Annual Message to Congress of December 1, 1862, was the 22nd book written by Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. It was praised by critics and won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize.

Synopsis

In the preface to The Fiery Trial, Eric Foner states his intention to trace "the evolution of Lincoln's ideas and policies about slavery from his early life through his career in the Illinois legislature in the 1830s, his term in Congress in the 1840s, his emergence as a leader of the new Republican party in the 1850s, and his presidency during the Civil War". The book closely examines Lincoln's speeches and writings, and avoids direct engagement with previous Lincoln historians.

The Fiery Trial begins with Lincoln's encounters with slavery in his early life, growing up in Kentucky and Indiana. He occasionally dealt with issues of slavery in his law practice in Illinois. The book also discusses Lincoln's position on slavery in the context of his political career. Lincoln was a moderate, attempting to bridge the gap between the abolitionist Radical Republicans and conservative Democrats, including those in the slave-holding states, whom he hoped would choose preserving the Union over steadfastly defending slavery. Lincoln initially supported the idea of voluntary colonization of freed blacks to Africa, a stance supported by some politicians at the time, although considered unethical by many. However, Lincoln eventually abandoned his moderate stance on slavery when he determined that to win the American Civil War, he needed to act to end slavery.

In the epilogue, Foner praises Lincoln's "capacity for growth, the essence of [his] greatness", and speculates that had he not been assassinated, he could have helped to prevent the disenfranchisement and segregation of blacks that followed emancipation. Foner concludes with a quotation by abolitionist Lydia Maria Child:

I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln ... With all his deficiencies, it must be admitted that he has grown continuously; and considering how slavery had weakened and perverted the moral sense of the whole country, it was great good luck to have the people elect a man who was willing to grow.

Background

Eric Foner, the book's author, is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. His specialties include the American Civil War and the subsequent Reconstruction Era. The Fiery Trial was his 22nd book. Foner's 1989 book Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 won the Bancroft Prize of Columbia University, an award also given to The Fiery Trial.

Before The Fiery Trial, several of Foner's works had discussed Lincoln, but this was the first of his books to study the president directly. Foner began the book because he believed "that it was still possible to say something new, despite the voluminous literature that's out there."

The Fiery Trial was published in 2010 by W.W. Norton & Company. The book's title is a quotation from Lincoln's December 1, 1862, Annual Message to Congress (today the State of the Union address), in which he said of the Civil War: "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.... The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."