Sep 29th

A Short History of Reconstruction
$14.99
This is an incredible book that took an extraordinary amount of legwork to produce. It provides a glimpse into the window of Reconstruction unlike any other work, setting the record straight through a painstaking display of facts and research which destroy the old Columbia school line.

Foner tells such an awesome tale that one marvels at some of the facts he explains. In the very early years just after the fall of the slavocracy many of the districts in the south sent black representatives to state legislatures with most of these reps being no more than 25 years old. Going from bondage to seats in state congresses is unfathomable especially given that the districts had been planter strongholds since colonial times.

What Foner demonstrates to the reader is a Reconstruction complete with all the nuance and manifold complexity that such a remarkable era contained. He almost makes it impossible to believe that in actuality Reconstruction only lasted a few years before the thuggery of Redemption came into ascendance complete with white hoods, corrupt courts and northern retrenchment.

The last half of the book does a sublime job of documenting and expounding on the ways in which northern interests eventually put their ethics and morality on hold by taking a hands off approach to the massive violence, intimidation and belligerency carried out by the Klan and other wealthy southern Redeemers against reformers, blacks and Republican institutions. This is vivid history that comes alive with Foner's scholarly technique and exquisite writing style.