A Short History of Reconstruction

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.

Eric Foner's "Short History" of Reconstruction has radically changed how the period is taught at the high school and university levels. Before Foner, the majority of texts treated the Reconstruction as a period of corruption and revenge against the south. (See for instance, the early editions of Thomas Bailey's "The American Pageant" for such a treatment.) Foner successfully showed how Reconstruction was America's great revolution, and opened up debate on whether it was successful. Some reviewers here have mentioned lapses in Foner's version, including a lack of in-depth discussion of Black legislators. Foner's analysis is so important that very few (including DuBois) even made such questions before this book. Today's historians of Reconstruction stand on Foner's shoulders to see farther than he did. (The current editions of "The American Pageant" have been rewritten to consider Foner's contributions.)

In an attempt to document the important issues of reconstruction, Eric Foner compiled his book Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. This book was the basis for the abridged version titled, A Short History of Reconstruction. The shorter version is an excellent study of Reconstruction, and does not read as though it were patched together for light reading. Foner addresses all the major issues leading up reconstruction, and then finishing his book shortly after the end of reconstruction and the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876. In the preface of his book, Foner discusses the historiography of Reconstruction. He notes that during the early part of the twentieth century many historians considered Reconstruction as one of the darkest periods of American history. Foner notes that this viewpoint changed during the 1960s as revisionists shed new "light" on reconstruction. The revisionists saw Andrew Johnson as a stubborn racist, and viewed the Radical Republicans as "idealistic reformers genuinely committed to black rights." (xiii) Foner notes further that recent studies of reconstruction argue that the Radicals were actually quite conservative, and most Radicals held on to their racist views and put up very little fight as the whites once again began to govern the south. Foner initially describes the African-American experience during the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Foner argues that African-Americans were not simply figures that took little or no action in the events of the day. Foner notes the enlistment of thousands of African-Americans in the Union army during the war. Foner also notes that many of the African-Americans that eventually became civil leaders had at one time served in the Union Army. Foner states, "For men of talent and ambition, the army flung open a door to advancement and respectability." (pg. 4) Foner notes that as reconstruction progressed, African-Americans were the targets of violence and racism. Foner describes several lynchings and other violent acts blacks were subject to. Foner believes that the transition of slaves into free laborers and equal citizens was the most drastic example of change following the end of the war. Foner notes how African-Americans were eventually forced to return to the plantations, not as slaves but as share croppers, and were thus introduced to a new form of slavery. Foner argues that this arrangement introduced a new class structure to the South. Foner states "It was an economic transformation that would culminate, long after the end of Reconstruction, in the consolidation of a rural proletariat composed of a new owning class of planters and merchants, itself subordinate to Northern financiers and industrialists. (pg. 78) Foner illustrates how both blacks and whites struggled to use the state and local governments to develop their own interests and establish their respective place in the evolving social orders. Another theme Foner addresses in his book is racism

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

Readers looking for the roots of difficulties that still plague the U.S. will find the perfect precis in A SHORT HISTORY OF THE RECONSTRUCTION. Civil rights freed of racial or gender limitations, race relations, states' rights versus federal laws, the rise of financial and business trusts, the foundations for all these "modern" issues are succinctly excavated and eloquently put on display by Foner in this great book. Should be required reading. Bravo!