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Title: A Short History of Reconstruction
Author: Eric Foner
Publication date: 1990
Number of pages: 297 with end matter, 260 without
Genre: History
Book number/goal: 4/12 books on United States history. I finished another goal of reading and taking notes on all of Capitalizing on Change, but haven't made any more progress on my list of articles about Native American history. I definitely won't get to all twelve US history books by my deadline (August 17), but I have another that I'll be reviewing soon, and will probably read at least two more.
Review: I really liked this one! It's an abridged version of a much longer book about Reconstruction by Eric Foner, and I think I'll try to read the longer one someday.
If you're not sure what Reconstruction is -- it's the period after the US Civil War (ending 1865, resulting in the freeing of enslaved African Americans) until the late 1870s, during which the southern states that had attempted to secede were "reconstructed" by northerners and by southerners loyal to the US. The goal that everyone agreed on was to re-establish state governments that the Union could permit to re-join itself; most southern blacks and some northern and southern whites also saw this as an opportunity to implement civil rights and social programs ranging from redistribution of abandoned plantations to former slaves, to public education. These attempts failed as the old white ruling class of the south attempted to regain its former power and as northerners lost interest in assisting southern blacks.
A Short History of Reconstruction is an explanation of what happened and why, and of the conflicting interests within political parties and across class, race, and geographical lines. It's very well written and, although I've studied this period before, taught me a lot of things I hadn't really considered before.
I recommend this book if you accidentally watched Birth of a Nation and need some brain bleach; if you want to learn about one of the greatest tragedies of US history (spoiler: it's NOT that the Confederacy lost); if you can use the depressing knowledge that ideas about social and economic justice that people are fighting about in the US today are not new--they're well over a century old, it's just that their enemies are older than that.
Author: Eric Foner
Publication date: 1990
Number of pages: 297 with end matter, 260 without
Genre: History
Book number/goal: 4/12 books on United States history. I finished another goal of reading and taking notes on all of Capitalizing on Change, but haven't made any more progress on my list of articles about Native American history. I definitely won't get to all twelve US history books by my deadline (August 17), but I have another that I'll be reviewing soon, and will probably read at least two more.
Review: I really liked this one! It's an abridged version of a much longer book about Reconstruction by Eric Foner, and I think I'll try to read the longer one someday.
If you're not sure what Reconstruction is -- it's the period after the US Civil War (ending 1865, resulting in the freeing of enslaved African Americans) until the late 1870s, during which the southern states that had attempted to secede were "reconstructed" by northerners and by southerners loyal to the US. The goal that everyone agreed on was to re-establish state governments that the Union could permit to re-join itself; most southern blacks and some northern and southern whites also saw this as an opportunity to implement civil rights and social programs ranging from redistribution of abandoned plantations to former slaves, to public education. These attempts failed as the old white ruling class of the south attempted to regain its former power and as northerners lost interest in assisting southern blacks.
A Short History of Reconstruction is an explanation of what happened and why, and of the conflicting interests within political parties and across class, race, and geographical lines. It's very well written and, although I've studied this period before, taught me a lot of things I hadn't really considered before.
I recommend this book if you accidentally watched Birth of a Nation and need some brain bleach; if you want to learn about one of the greatest tragedies of US history (spoiler: it's NOT that the Confederacy lost); if you can use the depressing knowledge that ideas about social and economic justice that people are fighting about in the US today are not new--they're well over a century old, it's just that their enemies are older than that.