Reconstructing America: 1865-1890

The book was shipped in the condition described and by the time I needed it.

I Love This Entire Series! The author makes history so interesting. I have enjoyed learning U.S. History all over again (more like for the first time) with my kids. Recommend the whole set!

This book is really supposed to be for little kids in elementary school, but I am reading it to understand my U.S. history class in high school, because it conveys our history with such clarity, and doesn't muddle things up like big ol' textbooks. SO BUY THIS NOW!You won't regret it...I wish I could have given this book more than 5 stars.

"Reconstructing America 1865-1890," the 7th volume in Joy Hakim's A History of US series, expands the notion of reconstruction, usually applied only to the Southern states of the former Confederacy to include the entire nation. In her preface to the volume Hakim declares "Are We Equal? Are We Kidding?" Her point is to underscore the Declaration of Independence's famous proposition that all men are created equal and to point out that ending slavery does not really free people if they are denied education and jobs. However, while the issue of racial division begins and ends this book, Hakim covers the entire domestic history of the United States in between the Civil War and the rise of the nation as a world power.This volume does not have a formal structure but you can still find four rather distinction units. The first (Chapters 1-10) talks specifically about Southern Reconstruction and the fight between President Andrew Johnson and Thaddeus Stevens, leader of the Radical Republicans in Congress. The second (Chapters 11-18) tells about the opening of the West and Indians ordered to reservations. The third (Chapters 19-25) contrasts the world of Boss Tweed and Thomas Nast, P.T. Barnum and Mark Twain, with the immigrants who came to both coasts of the country. The fourth (Chapters 26-37) starts with the beginning of the movement towards rights for women and ends with Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois taking on the Jim Crow laws, with the birth of the Industrial Revolution and its patron saint Thomas Alva Edison in between.As you can see, this is an inelegant division of these 37 chapters at best. But in the second half of the 19th-century of American history lacks the direction of the first, where the nation was hurdling towards Civil War. The idea that America was indeed reconstructing, or remaking itself, makes sense. However, there is no finality to the story at this point because equality between the sexes and the races are still a half and full century away respectively. One sign of the changing focus of history is that George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn is literally a marginal topic while the story of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce gets an entire chapter. These volumes are wonderfully illustrated, with historic photographs, paintings, and in this particular volume political cartoons that help bring the period alive. Throughout the book you will find detailed features on subjects such as the first conservationist, John Wesley Powell, and the Route of the Nez Perce in 1877. As always the margins are crammed with notes, definitions, mini-biographies, and choice quotations. For children raised on computers and the Internet it is clear that Hakim is speaking their language, and for parents home schooling their children they will find Hakim to be an active teacher who anticipates questions and concerns from students even when she is writing and book and they are reading it. This is an excellent series

When I first saw this book, I thought that it would be like the awful textbooks they force you to read in schools across the country (i.e. "and then Washington retired, and Adams became president,etc.,etc."), but it wasn't boring at all. Joy Hakim's fabulous writing and the fun facts and illustrations scattered throughout this book make history seem like an ongoing story, instead of an endless monologue. Good for kids and adults alike!