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jungihong's review against another edition
Read this for my Reconstruction Amendments seminar for law school because I am a good, faithful student.
matthias55's review against another edition
This was a super informative read and I read it mostly while the kids were having their skating lessons. They finished those in 2022 and then I stopped reading. Still hope to get back to it
joeynedland's review against another edition
5.0
I started this tome after seeing it referenced in works by Adam Serwer and Jamelle Bouie, and couldn’t be more pleased that I persisted through the entire book. It’s dense, but Foner’s narrative of American Reconstruction provides detailed and compelling education on a core part of American history that goes woefully untold in public school curricula. I think that this should be required reading for all, as it shapes how we ought to see the current state of the nation, and brings to the fore questions of racial equality in political representation (with historical example) that shift the paradigm of what I think is possible for our country. I close this book with a newfound disdain for Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, with a new admiration for Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Hiram Revels and others, and a new worldview on the trajectory of the United States and the actors who were responsible for creating the nationwide inequities and racism that plague us to this day. Bravo to Eric Foner.
kwheeles's review against another edition
2.0
Rating is for my enjoyment, not quality of book (overly detailed for my taste, but containing passages of real interest). Reconstruction was a difficult thing to envision, begun without much of a consensus on how to proceed; with some local successes initially that held out hope of realizing the promise of the war; but ultimately ended up as mostly a dark triumph of reactionaries and resistance to change.