Reconstruction Updated Edition: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
by Eric Foner
ISBN 13: 978-0062354518
Book description

From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" ( New York Times Book Review ), the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period that shaped modern America. Eric Foner's "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" ( New Republic ) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed. Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans. This "smart book of enormous strengths" ( Boston Globe ) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.


Recommended on 1 episode:

How Identity Politics Took Over the Republican Party
One problem with the conversation around political polarization is that it can imply that polarization is a static, singular thing. That our divisions are fixed and unchanging. But that’s not how it is at all. The dimensions of conflict change, and they change quickly. In the Obama era, Republicans mobilized against government spending and deficits but didn’t think much about election administration. Now, a trillion-dollar infrastructure package has passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but the divisions over democracy and voting access are deep. Lilliana Mason is one of the political scientists I’ve learned the most from in recent years. Her 2018 book, ā€œUncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity,ā€ is, in my view, one of the most important political books of the last decade. But it’s been a tumultuous three and a half years since it was published. And Mason has continued to pump out important new work on political identity, how support for Donald Trump differs from that of other Republicans, when Democrats and Republicans believe political violence is justifiable and even necessary, and much more. And so I wanted to have Mason on the show to discuss how her thinking has changed in recent years and, in particular, which identities and interests she thinks are at the center of our political collisions today.
Lilliana Mason Aug. 13, 2021 3 books recommended
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by @zachbellay