Reconstruction Updated Edition

This could probably be shortlisted as essential reading in American history, though it’s not perfect. For one, it’s not necessarily good coherent history: Foner kind of stitches together disparate topics and is also kind of discursive in his presentation. He also kind of fills in the cracks or the blanks with a tacit socialist or Marxist ideology (which this reviewer does not necessarily view as a problem), but this Marxist narrative impulse leads to digressions such as the chapter “Ambiguities of Free Labor,” which takes momentum established by the first three chapters, which are much stronger. I think it also leads him to de-emphasize the evangelical, Enlightenment, and classical liberal origins of the abolitionist movement and also, throughout the book, marginalize the impact of black church institutions. However, it’s ultimately extremely rigorous and thoroughly researched. It’s not going to blow over anytime soon, even though I think he goes too far, verging on iconoclasm, to the point of derogating the American South outright. I think it’s been over thirty years since he published this, and it still endures and will probably continue to do so. I would think the abridged version of this book would be a better experience, especially on an “e-reader,” than this tome.

Labor, suffrage, property, and education are the, foremost, clauses within this book. The author’s capacity to expound these four premises continuously, chapter after chapter, establishes comprehensively a foundation of the realities many would rather most not to ever come to understand—arguably, the era of Reconstruction has yet to be completed.

How terrible for our national government to abandon its most vulnerable within an hour they required it the most—and the parallels that exist today are the consequential fruits of a detestable iniquity.

Don’t just read this book—study it—then observe your local and state governments and consider where do you fit within those institutions.