Start with Eric Foner’s masterful Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988). For those who are interested in an introduction to Reconstruction, the following list of books, while far from exhaustive, is a first step to understanding the period that to a large extent determined what the Civil War did-and did not-achieve. I also find that people seem reluctant to read about this area of American history. Moreover, much of what people do know about this time-when the federal government attempted to rebuild the country and define the meaning of freedom for millions of former slaves-comes from dated scholarship that reached its most popular expression in the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation.Īs a historian of Reconstruction politics and policy, I often find it challenging to contest long-held beliefs about these important postwar years-specifically the view that Reconstruction was a wrong-headed effort to punish white southerners by constructing new regimes throughout the South led by irresponsible whites and incompetent blacks, and supported by federal bayonets. It’s safe to say that while many Americans take a great interest in the battles and leaders of the Civil War, far fewer are familiar with the events of Reconstruction, the dozen years after the conflict. In this sketch by Alfred Waud, a federal official stands between armed groups of southern whites and African Americans during Reconstruction.
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