I am attracted to stories about the aftermath of cataclysmic change. How does a society reconstruct itself when everything is destroyed? Earlier this year I read Embracing Defeat, about post-WWII Japan; other examples include Ten Days that Shook the World and Red Star Over China.
Reconstruction is the name given to the period immediately after the Civil War, when the country had to grapple with the question of how to re-integrate the Confederate states into the Union. As in Japan, the victors had to determine how to deal with those who had been in power during (and before) the war and how to modernize the decimated economies. They had the further issue of how to support the newly freed slaves and integrate them into society.
Reconstruction presents the period largely as an attempt by the North to prevent the South from returning to its plantation society, for both moral and economic reasons. Reconstruction ended when economic considerations no longer pulled in the same direction as the moral ones, due to a deep depression in the mid-1870s. Traditional Southern society retrenched at that point, a process they referred to as Redemption.
It was a fascinating time in history. The Republican and Democratic parties are reversed from their positions today, with the Republicans being the radicals who want equality for blacks and the Democrats being the conservative voice for state's rights. (The Republicans are still the party of capital, though, which explains their policy shift once white unions start making demands.) Reconstruction also brought a huge expansion of federal power.
Foner calls out the major currents driving events forward, from a liberal perspective. Unfortunately, he is also an academic attempting to write the definitive account, which means he buries his themes under a wealth of detail that can make the book a slog to read. His account of the last few years is particularly dense as tactical political maneuvering replaces larger goals. Nonetheless there is a lot of great material in here that illuminates the original sources for discussions we're still having today about state's rights, civil vs societal equality, and interpreting the intent of the writers of the Constitution.
Reconstruction is the name given to the period immediately after the Civil War, when the country had to grapple with the question of how to re-integrate the Confederate states into the Union. As in Japan, the victors had to determine how to deal with those who had been in power during (and before) the war and how to modernize the decimated economies. They had the further issue of how to support the newly freed slaves and integrate them into society.
Reconstruction presents the period largely as an attempt by the North to prevent the South from returning to its plantation society, for both moral and economic reasons. Reconstruction ended when economic considerations no longer pulled in the same direction as the moral ones, due to a deep depression in the mid-1870s. Traditional Southern society retrenched at that point, a process they referred to as Redemption.
It was a fascinating time in history. The Republican and Democratic parties are reversed from their positions today, with the Republicans being the radicals who want equality for blacks and the Democrats being the conservative voice for state's rights. (The Republicans are still the party of capital, though, which explains their policy shift once white unions start making demands.) Reconstruction also brought a huge expansion of federal power.
Foner calls out the major currents driving events forward, from a liberal perspective. Unfortunately, he is also an academic attempting to write the definitive account, which means he buries his themes under a wealth of detail that can make the book a slog to read. His account of the last few years is particularly dense as tactical political maneuvering replaces larger goals. Nonetheless there is a lot of great material in here that illuminates the original sources for discussions we're still having today about state's rights, civil vs societal equality, and interpreting the intent of the writers of the Constitution.
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