A Short History of Reconstruction

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University, is the author of numerous works on American history, including Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War; Tom Paine and Revolutionary America; and The Story of American Freedom. He has served as president of both the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association, and has been named Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities.

Reader Reviews
I have never read Foner's longer treatment of this tragic period in American history, "Reconstruction, America's Unfinished Revolution," but this abridgement gives an exellent overview of the subject. Foner debunks the theory that the "Radical Republicans" were the bad guys and the Andrew Johnson was a moderate acting in the spirit of Lincoln. In fact, there was very little progress in restoring rights to freedmen during the first year or two after the Civil War under Johnson's "moderate" approach. In fact, Johnson, while a firm supporter of the Union during the war was, in his views towards blacks, a racist as demonstrated by statemnets Johnson made and which this book documents. It was only after the "Radicals" forced federal intervention that blacks made significant progress. Unfortunately, Democrats began to make headway in the South, often by the use of intimidation and violence, and what remained of the Republican party began to change it's agenda. Certainly, the Republicans in the North became indifferent, culminating in President Rutherford B. Hayes' abandonment of Reconstruction after his narrow victory over Samuel Tilden in the 1876 election. This book is illumi\nating and well written. Although an abridgement, it reads smoothly rather than as a patchwork. I recommend this book to all who are interested in this underemphasized period of American history


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