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    Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
    Unavailable
    Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
    Unavailable
    Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
    Ebook1,351 pages22 hours

    Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877

    By Eric Foner

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" (New York Times Book Review), a newly updated edition of the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern America, with a new introduction from the author.

    Eric Foner's "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed.

    Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans.

    This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 13, 2011
    ISBN9780062035868
    Unavailable
    Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
    Author

    Eric Foner

    Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and the author of several books. In 2006 he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching at Columbia University. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Society of American Historians. He lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for Reconstruction

    4.5/5

    30 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Foner's examination of the Reconstruction era is a much-needed tonic in the these neo-Confederate days. But it is a tough and dense read. While the book is self-contained enough that a reader basically unfamiliar with the era can pick it up and follow along, it requires careful attention. These days it is also pretty depressing, Reading the chapters on the "Redemption" period, the advent of Jim Crow and voter suppression, I found myself unable to avoid seeing our modern nation, after Shelby County v. Holder, returning to this shameful past like a dog to its vomit. An important and necessary book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Eric Foner begins with an assessment of the historiography up to 1988. In the first decade of the 1900s, William Dunning and John W. Burgess articulated a history of Reconstruction that condemned Radical Republicans, Northern carpetbaggers, Southern scalawags, and freedmen. W.E.B. Du Bois, in 1935, and Howard Beale, in the 1940s, initiated the revisionist school, which cast Northern policymakers and freedmen in a more positive light. Foner writes of the revisionist school, ?Reconstruction revisionism bore the mark of the modern civil rights movement? (Short History of Reconstruction, xiii). Despite their efforts to portray Reconstruction as a revolutionary moment, the social situation of the 1950s and 1960s belied that interpretation and fostered postrevisionist critiques. Foner admits the faults of the Dunning method, but believes it offered the best synthesis of the era. His work ?aims to combine the Dunning School?s aspiration to a broad interpretive framework with the findings and concerns of recent scholarship? (xxiv). Summarizing the book?s impact in 2014, Foner wrote, ?By the time my book appeared numerous scholars had exposed one or another weakness of the Dunning interpretation. Reconstruction was to drive the final nail into the coffin of the Dunning School and to offer an alternative account of the era? (Updated Edition,xxxi). Foner describes the impact of his work by citing historians who use the ?unfinished revolution? framework to examine the disappointments of Reconstruction, including Stephen Kantrowitz?s More Than Freedom (Updated Edition, xl). Foner presents a four-part argument in Reconstruction. First and foremost, he argues that African Americans ?were active agents in the making of Reconstruction? (xxiv). Additionally, he argues that the changes during Reconstruction resulted from ?a complex series of interactions among blacks and whites, Northerners and Southerners, in which victories were often tentative and outcomes subject to challenge and revision? (xxv). Third, ?racism was an intrinsic part of the progress of historical development, which affected and was affected by changes in the social and political order? (xxvi). Finally, the same economic and class changes that occurred in the South were simultaneously occurring in the North.Elaborating on his first point, Foner writes, ?Black soldiers played a crucial role not only in winning the Civil War, but in defining the war?s consequences. Their service helped transform the nation?s treatment of blacks and blacks? conception of themselves? (8). Foner writes of black Republicans, ?The spectacle of former slaves representing the lowcountry rice kingdom or the domain of Natchez cotton nabobs epitomized the political revolution wrought by Reconstruction? (355). When addressing class issues, Foner describes the conflict between elite and common Southerners as ?a civil war within the Civil War? (15). Discussing the impact of racism on politics, Foner writes, ?Even where blacks enjoyed greater influence within the party, Republican governors initially employed their influence to defeat civil rights bills or vetoed them when passed, fearing that such measures threatened the attempt to establish their administrations? legitimacy by wooing white support? (370). Elaborating on his Southerners? reactions to Northern involvement in the South, Foner argues against the traditional narrative of carpetbaggers, writing, ?Despite instances of violent hostility or ostracism, most Southern planters recognized that Northern investment, ironically, was raising land prices and rescuing many former slaveholders from debt ? in a word, stabilizing their class? (137). Foner describes the economic changes of Reconstruction, writing, ?Republican rule subtly altered the balance of power in the rural South? (401), and planters, ?once alone at the apex of Southern society, they now saw other groups rising in economic importance? (399). To Foner, the Northern Reconstruction involved increasing industrialization, government activism and public reform, wage-earning dominating jobs, new social opportunities for African Americans, and the rise of Gilded Age politics (460-511).Foner draws upon various manuscripts and letters in archives throughout the United States, government documents such as Congressional records, newspapers, contemporary publications from the time of Reconstruction, and memoirs written after the fact. He also performs a great deal of synthesis of the various parts of the historiography, working to undo the legacy of the Dunning School?s racism. As Foner wrote in 2014, ?Most books in the New American Nation Series summarize, often very ably, the current state of historical scholarship, rather than rely on new research? (Updated Edition, xxix). His contribution blends the two approaches.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This writing shows the failure of the reconstruction period. The details of how the former slave owners regained their power in the development of the new South which wasn't much different than the old.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Essential book on the Reconstruction. Very well-researched, only drawback is that maybe it has too many details and is a bit long. It's very unfortunate how the hopes of freedmen and women started so high and they were completely let down.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I can't remember ever reading a book that made me so mad, over and over. I of course knew what to expect, and yet managed to be repeatedly horrified at our ancestors' failures. Political change is a grind it out, every day battle. Think Ho Chi Minh. There are no shortcuts. The Redeemers knew they weren't going anywhere, and the North would eventually tire of the war they 'won', and thereby lose the peace. And so it was. A timely reminder to the Bernie Bros - winning the election is the START of the battle, not the finish.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The United States has always been a heterogeneous nation, right from the beginning; its politics has always reflected that fact. Nowhere is this more evident than in the period known in US history as Reconstruction, which took place between 1865 and 1877. Though relative short, it was a turbulent time, as everyone--politicians North and South as well as newly freed slaves tried to define what exactly ?freedom? meant. At that time, while there was widespread agreement in the North about emancipation, most of the country, the North included, was divided on what ?freedom? meant. Foner divides the concept into four areas: economic, civil, political, social. All of these meant something different to the lives of blacks; Foner goes into great detail both what each meant to freedmen (ex-slaves) and freeborn alike.Possibly the single most important event that shaped Reconstruction happened right at the beginning--the assassination of Lincoln, which elevated Andrew Johnson to the Presidency in 1865. Much of what happened in Reconstruction followed from this single event, and Foner does a brilliant job of recounting the consequences.There is so much to this book that it?s difficult to put it in a single review. For me, among the most memorable sections were: the violence--not just by the Ku Klux Klan but by other armed gangs of whites-against blacks, massacring blacks to prevent them from voting; the association of the Republican Party, which had been one that represented smallholders and independent merchants, free labor, with corporations, especially railroads, and banks; the violence and overt racism of the Democratic party throughout the country; the suffragette movement; the shift, especially among poor white Southerners, from independent landholding to working for wages; the origin of sharecropping; the increased protests of labor and the violence with which it was put down, North and South; the vast corruption both North and South with both parties; and so much more.Foner writes extremely well, but the book is so jammed with information that it reads slowly. I found I could not read more than 25 pages a day without going on overload. However, the effort is more than amply repaid with understanding.Much of what we see today in the US either has its origins or was mirrored in this period. For in-depth understanding of the political and social history of a critical period, this book is a must own and must read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Eric Foner's essential work on the post-Civil War American South. I'm not a fan of alternate histories, but this book makes you ponder 'what could have been' if Reconstruction had been more successful. Much like the early days of the English revolution when "for a short time, ordinary people were freer from the authority of church and social superiors than they had ever been before, or were for a long time to be again", so former slaves briefly experienced unprecedented freedom and political power. (See Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down). Ex-slaves had made tremendous strides in political and to a lesser extent economic power, but the white North lost interest and called the troops home. Southern white elites reasserted their power with violence if necesssary. Jim Crow soon followed.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      It seems like the definitive work on post-Civil War reconstruction. It looks at every aspect, reading with more narrative than specific argument, this is essential for anyone looking at this era or, in my opinion, the Civil Rights movement, which is the legacy of Reconstruction.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Anything by the great historian Eric Foner is worth reading, but this is my favorite by far. I'd read plenty on Reconstruction prior, but didn't really get a real grasp on the politics of it until I read this.

      1 person found this helpful