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matthias55's review
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
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.
askmashka's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
johnw613's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
5.0
From the preeminent historian of the pre-Civil War era comes this definitive history of the dozen years following Appomattox.
The process of reassembling the United States following the Civil War required nothing less than a complete reinvention of The South, economically, politically, and socially. Radical Republicans launched a series of progressive initiatives that resulted in three landmark amendments to the Constitution, as well as attempts to bring the freedmen fully into the national dialog. The resistance was sure and long lasting and the region sank into the darkness of de jure racism and segregation before the civil rights movement of the mid 20th century began the arduous and still uncompleted process of righting the many egregious wrongs. The federal government became more activity during this time, setting the stage more many further efforts to reinvent and realign the body politic.
Professor Foner is a brilliant and gifted writer and his books all read like spellbinding novels. This work is absolutely no exception. I did notice an unfortunate tendency to identify lawmakers serving in the upper house of the national legislature to be identified as, for example, “Illinois Senator Trumbull,” rather than the more correct identification as “Senator Trumbull of Illinois.” A pet peeve of mine, I acknowledge, but the distinction is valid.
All in all, a magisterial work that will continue to stand as the pinnacle study of the period.
The process of reassembling the United States following the Civil War required nothing less than a complete reinvention of The South, economically, politically, and socially. Radical Republicans launched a series of progressive initiatives that resulted in three landmark amendments to the Constitution, as well as attempts to bring the freedmen fully into the national dialog. The resistance was sure and long lasting and the region sank into the darkness of de jure racism and segregation before the civil rights movement of the mid 20th century began the arduous and still uncompleted process of righting the many egregious wrongs. The federal government became more activity during this time, setting the stage more many further efforts to reinvent and realign the body politic.
Professor Foner is a brilliant and gifted writer and his books all read like spellbinding novels. This work is absolutely no exception. I did notice an unfortunate tendency to identify lawmakers serving in the upper house of the national legislature to be identified as, for example, “Illinois Senator Trumbull,” rather than the more correct identification as “Senator Trumbull of Illinois.” A pet peeve of mine, I acknowledge, but the distinction is valid.
All in all, a magisterial work that will continue to stand as the pinnacle study of the period.