This exhaustive, comprehensive and completely detailed masterpiece is a complete post-revisionist account of Reconstruction, providing analysis of every conceivable angle. It includes a convincing refutation of the Dunning school, why a revisionist school emerged, the nuts and bolts of Presidential Reconstruction, why "Radical Reconstruction" was never truly radical. The book describes how the undertaking was too vast for a small 19th century central government, why the state governments were unwilling and unable to deliver very much, and how ultimately, the effort failed.

There is an abridged version of this work for the general reader. However, I suggest a reading of the longer book. Even at 600 pages, it is worth it. As other reviewers have pointed out, this is the definitive account of reconstruction.

This textbook was one of the first to point out the less-than-rosy treatment of blacks in the Reconstruction era, and such a text was long overdue. However, the narrative is painfully long and regularly repeats material covered in a previous chapter. You inevitably come to feel that Foner felt - in his eagerness to show the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - that it was better to overwhelm the reader with repetition than to risk a single point being lost. One begins to crave a good editor for Mr. Foner, which is unfortunate because this book - for all its faults) really does an admirable job of pointing out the plight of the ex-slave in the South. Bottom line: Reconstruction should be read, but the reading is very painful.

If you are looking for a cursory overview of the Reconstruction years following the American Civil War, this is NOT the book for you. However, if you are not afraid to take on a lot of historical facts, this is a good book that covers the political waxing and waning era. I've often wondered how we got from such a "righteous cause" to the turn of the century civil rights mess we had. This book helped me better understand the realities of the times. Not easy to read but worth the effot.

I finished this book this weekend. It took me the better part of the summer to get through the 600+ pages of text. This is not an easy read, in many cases it was downright depressing. Oftentimes, I stopped because I just couldn't read anymore. There was only so much 'man's inhumanity to man' you can take. While good, and righteous people sit on the sidelines and do nothing.

Other times this book had me racing to Google or Wikipedias to bring back knowledge about people and places Foner describes more fully. For all the salacious things said about the Radical Republicans a huge debt is owed to Senator Thaddeus Stevens. He led the charge for overturning President Johnson's veto on the 13th Amendment and help craft the 14th and 15th as well. Steven's was a visionary, and had we done what he advocated we might have preempted 100 years of prolonged guerilla warfare after the Civil War. I read that Steven's home in Lancaster, PA was being destroyed to build a convention center. It ironic because everywhere I go in the South there is yet another memorial to Lee, or Jackson, or some other aspect of the 'Lost Cause' yet no one has the fortitude to save the memory of this great American; Thaddeus Stevens.

Sad, tragic... just like this book.

The period of post civil war reconstruction has largely been a mystery to me from the perspective of a mid-twentieth century public education. With the dearth of social ills now confronting us that previously could hardly have been imagined, I decided to take the time and read Froner's dense prize-winning account of reconstruction for any insights to why America seems to be failing so many of its citizens. Froner's deconstruction of the period is nothing short of a revelation - from the beginnings of class antagonisms, capital speculation and political influence, a brightline extends from the Reconstruction period directly to today's social ills, prejudice, war profiteering, crime and the prison-industrial complex, neoconservative agenda's and shady corporate deals. The wealth of documented source evidence and period pieces leave little doubt of the historical accuracy evident in the work - it is dense, fact-filled and notated, a sampling of which I double checked personally. Reconstruction illustrates that the abuses of our Constitution aren't new or original, but only the current incarnations of an evil born out of the greed and selfishness that pre-empted a rare opportunity to fulfill the promises made by our founding fathers. This is a must read book - more so today in light of the neoconservative and fascist resurgence cloaked in bloody patriotism and false morality. Facts add weight to the truth of history and the credibility of the author.

Eric Foner once again displays his bias in yet another revision of history, this time the Reconstruction Era. Foner ignores the abuses wrought by corrupt politicians and a military regime determined to wreak vengeance on former Confederate States, and the many violations against ordinary southern citizens.

In Foner's mind, Reconstruction was a benevolent institution that did everything possible to advance race relations and institute equality (then why did black women not get the vote along with black men?) in the racist south. Never mind that slavery had also existed in the north, and that racism was just as prevalent in the Union States.

Whatever your view of history, one cannot argue that this work breaks no new ground and doesn't tell even the pro-Reconstruction camp anything that they didn't know before. Unfortunately it will likely prove popular in today's oh-so-politically-correct history classrooms.

Eric Foner once again displays his bias in yet another revision of history, this time the Reconstruction Era. Foner ignores the abuses wrought by corrupt politicians and a military regime determined to wreak vengeance on former Confederate States, and the many violations against ordinary southern citizens.

In Foner's mind, Reconstruction was a benevolent institution that did everything possible to advance race relations and institute equality (then why did black women not get the vote along with black men?) in the racist south. Never mind that slavery had also existed in the north, and that racism was just as prevalent in the Union States.

Whatever your view of history, one cannot argue that this work breaks no new ground and doesn't tell even the pro-Reconstruction camp anything that they didn't know before. Unfortunately it will likely prove popular in today's oh-so-politically-correct history classrooms.

If you read Battle Cry of Freedom and want to read the sequel, here it is. The book is every bit as detailed and scholarly, and presents the era extremely well. The problem is that where Battle Cry covered the Civil period chock full of intriguing characters, major events, and familiar territory, Foner must work with a very muddled and confusing time in American history. The test of a good writer is whether s/he can make sense of a difficult topic, and Foner does an excellent job. A recommended read for serious students of American history.

I had a difficult time getting through this book. I almost put it down. However, I felt that it offered some useful information.

What I did not like was Foner perpetuating the Lincoln Myth - the Great Emancipator. Lincoln hated folks of African descent, and the Emancipation Proclamation did not fre anyone. Throughout Lincoln's political life he fought hard for black exodus out of the country, preferably to some African, South American, or island nation. He strongly believed in compensated emancipation to the slave owner. He was a friend and advocate to the slave holding class. Until the end of his life, he held these views. A good book to read is Lincoln Forced Into Glory by Lerone Bennett.

I also did not like how he put a negative spin on Sumner and Stevens. These men were truly great men, and deserved to be known to Black Americans, and others. He always made them seem like a bunch a crazy radicals just because they wanted to enfrancise the African population.

In saying of of that, I feel this book was a worthwhile, torturous read.

I had a difficult time getting through this book. I almost put it down. However, I felt that it offered some useful information.

What I did not like was Foner perpetuating the Lincoln Myth - the Great Emancipator. Lincoln hated folks of African descent, and the Emancipation Proclamation did not fre anyone. Throughout Lincoln's political life he fought hard for black exodus out of the country, preferably to some African, South American, or island nation. He strongly believed in compensated emancipation to the slave owner. He was a friend and advocate to the slave holding class. Until the end of his life, he held these views. A good book to read is Lincoln Forced Into Glory by Lerone Bennett.

I also did not like how he put a negative spin on Sumner and Stevens. These men were truly great men, and deserved to be known to Black Americans, and others. He always made them seem like a bunch a crazy radicals just because they wanted to enfrancise the African population.

In saying of of that, I feel this book was a worthwhile, torturous read.

This book is excellent, but it's thick and heavy going. I found a reduced edition in paperback which I started to read first, but soon found that I preferred the detail and color in the full edition. Reconstruction was a genuine tragedy and one that could have been avoided if the federal government under President Grant had cared about what was happening to the blacks in the south. Even after the Ku Klux Klan killing spree of 1865-66, murder and lynching continued to occur and massacres too, as the white population attempted to avoid negro suffrage and negro economic independence. By the end of the era, white supremacy was firmly reestablished, and things remained that way for another century. I found to my surprise that some of the figures I had learned to hate were not bad men at all: Thaddeus Stevens, the Radical Republican, strove for civil rights, and also in Congress, Ben Butler, the political general of the Civil War and buffoon of New Orleans, was even more radical, opting for total suffrage, including giving women the vote.
It's depressing reading, loss after loss after loss, but for anyone who wants really to understand why our history is so blotted with evil periods, the book is a must. Five stars.

This book is excellent, but it's thick and heavy going. I found a reduced edition in paperback which I started to read first, but soon found that I preferred the detail and color in the full edition. Reconstruction was a genuine tragedy and one that could have been avoided if the federal government under President Grant had cared about what was happening to the blacks in the south. Even after the Ku Klux Klan killing spree of 1865-66, murder and lynching continued to occur and massacres too, as the white population attempted to avoid negro suffrage and negro economic independence. By the end of the era, white supremacy was firmly reestablished, and things remained that way for another century. I found to my surprise that some of the figures I had learned to hate were not bad men at all: Thaddeus Stevens, the Radical Republican, strove for civil rights, and also in Congress, Ben Butler, the political general of the Civil War and buffoon of New Orleans, was even more radical, opting for total suffrage, including giving women the vote.
It's depressing reading, loss after loss after loss, but for anyone who wants really to understand why our history is so blotted with evil periods, the book is a must. Five stars.

Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 is heavily biased against the South. Yankees have been writing and rewriting southern history since 1865, with disastrous consequences for the truth.

From 1973-1982, he served as a Professor in the Department of History at City College and Graduate Center at City University of New York.

Foner earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from Columbia University in 1963, a second B.A. from Oriel College, Oxford, as a Kellett Fellow in 1965, and his Ph.D. in 1969, under the tutelage of Richard Hofstadter at Columbia.

Jack Foner was blacklisted in colleges and universities in the United States for nearly 30 years after declining to discuss his political preferences with a government committee.

One with such biased views of the South cannot write an objective history of Reconstruction.

Eric Foner is a marvelous scholar. Unfortunately, as a writer, he is still a marvelous scholar. Like so many academics, he has failed to learn a crisp, clear writing style that "popular" historical writers like Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough learned early in their careers. The sheer amount of data in Foner's book is like wanting a bath but getting a tidal wave (although I have read even more brutal academic writing than Foner's). I believe Mr. (Dr.?) Foner would have gotten the point across much better with a less and more focused information and clearer writing. His book on the rise of the Republican Party, by the way, is as thorough and just as hard to read. Buy all Foner books and keep them handy for reference, but do not expect them to offer you an enjoyable reading experience unless you are steeped in the lugubrious rhetoric of academia.

As I'm sure many others have done, I've read a fair amount of history on the American Civil War. I've studied individual battles, unit histories and read countless diaries. However, I've read only a few studies of the events leading up to or following the war.

Mr. Foner has done a masterful study of the subject let there be no doubt. And for those of you who are more educated than I, you'll likely enjoy it more than I did. My rating is due to how I enjoyed the book and I'm not making a judgement on the text from an academic point of view. I really think it was just way too much for me.

Mr. Foner does have another book on the subject: A Short History of Reconstruction that may be better suited to you if, like me, you want to know what happened without getting bogged down by an overload of information.

Eric Foner's RECONSTRUCTION: AMERICA'S UNFINISHED REVOLUTION, 1863-1877 is a fine example that revisionist history attempts to fill in or clarify misconceptions of one of the most tumultuous periods in history that has been confusing or slightly incomprehensible when studying. In clear and precise language, Foner builds his examination of Reconstruction from previous scholarship and his understanding of the Dunning School, which shaped historical writings about Reconstruction prior to reexamination during the 1950s and 1960s when serious inquiry began to arise as a result of the Civil Rights Movement. Foner's examines Reconstruction from different stages and perspectives, and provides a well-researched study that may be one of the most definitive studies about RECONSTRUCTION written during the twentieth century, which integrates social, economic, and political aspects of this period in American history.

Foner provides four major themes to his study about RECONSTRUCTION. First, he adds on to the Dunning School's broad perspective with the emphasis of other scholarship that has arisen through the years, and he provides a coherent and comprehensive account, which shows the contributions Blacks made as active agents. Second, tracing Southern society, which accounts for the Black experience as well as joint contributions from White planters, merchants, and yeomen. Third, the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of postwar race relations are examined. Fourth, a discussion of national citizenship, and how it was redefined as a result of Reconstruction. Lastly, the capstone of RECONSTRUCTION is the study of the North's economy and class structure, which affected the events that occurred during Reconstruction.

If one wants to have a better understanding of US Reconstruction, Eric Foner's RECONSTRUCTION may be the best place to begin. The book is immensely detailed, and provides answers to misconstrued issues that pertain to Andrew Johnson, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Freedmen. This should be recommended reading for all college students in a US history class because the concerns that are addressed in the book also leave unanswered questions that should be further studied and examined.

First, to refute some talking points of negative reviewers:

Grant was NOT an "unsung hero of Reconstruction." The fact that he signed off on Congressional appropriations that continued to downsize the Army, refused to send additional troops to Reconstruction states, and had to be prodded into action to take action against specific acts of violence, etc., should refute that fact. The reviewer who wrote this also said Grant didn't run again after his first term (big error one) and made it sound like self-sacrifice (ignoring his 1880 angling for a GOP nomination for a third term) shows both that this reviewer doesn't know history and that Grant was not beknighted.

Second, related to that, the GOP bears ultimate blame. True, Andrew Johnson's impeachment charges were trumped up. But that fact was no excuse to retreat so abruptly from Radical Reconstruction after he was acquitted. But, contrary to the reviewer mentioned above and others, "centrist" southern whites could not have established Redeemer governments without Northern Republican acquiescence in lightening the hand of Reconstruction.

Foner provides an in-depth and hard-hitting social history of this movement. Perhaps many whites today don't like to face the fact that we can't just blame Southern white Democrats for the failure of Reconstruction. Nonetheless, that's where we stand.

By starting with Jan. 1, 1863 and the Emancipation Proclamation, Foner, without providing a final answer, leads us to ponder one of American history's greatest "what ifs" -- what if Lincoln had lived to oversee Reconstruction?

Throughout this book, Foner demonstrates why he is our best historian of Reconstruction and shows his oats as one of our top progressive historians.

Throw out your book or DVD of Ric Burns' white-bread overview of Reconstruction; this is the real thing.

I believe it was Charles Beard who first called the American Civil War "The Second American Revolution". Although he was chiefly concerned with the shift in the balance of power from the Southern slaveholders to the Industrial North, modern historians who agree with him see emancipation and the rise of black rights as among the most revolutionary events in American History.

Eric Foner's work is strictly within this tradition. Beginning with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Foner traces the evolution of Reconstruction politics, policies and philosophy. For Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction was a war measure, an experimental, evolving policy designed to coerce and seduce the South into surrender, and to consolidate emancipation. Only after Appomattox, in his final speech, did Lincoln publicly endorse limited Black suffrage.

But for Radical Republicans, during and after the war, reconstruction was part of a grander scheme, consciously revolutionary. The Radicals wanted to destroy the rebel Slaveholding South, and to build a new South, led by former slaves, freeborn blacks, and genuine Southern unionists. Going as far as attempting to impeach President Andrew Johnson, whose 'Presidential Reconstruction' practically surrendered Southern states back to the rebels, Radicals undermined the Johnson based regimes, and made sweeping legislation that gave civil rights to the blacks. The fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the right to votes to blacks, surrendered more ground to Nativist and anti-Feminist politics then to Anti-black sentiments (pp. 446-447).

The only issue upon which Congress failed to enact Radical proposals was land redistribution. The failure to give blacks ownership of the land ensured that the slaveholding classes, although weakened, still dominated Southern life, and in time they were to reestablish control over the South.

Eric Foner's 'Reconstruction' is, in effect, two books combined as one. As a political history of America in the decade or so after the war, it is a masterful account, weaving together social, economic, cultural and political elements. Although Foner is no master of prose, his writing is clear and his logic sound. At the same time, the book is also a social history of the South during Reconstruction and Redemption.

Maybe I just dislike social history, but there are several chapters which could have been significantly shortened with little loss to the narrative. Like much social history I've read, Foner rarely attempts to quantify his conclusions, and the results are often a one line description, followed by a list of illustrations. Entirely typical are sections such as this:

'... Republican governors initially employed their influence to defeat civil rights bills... fearing that such measures threaten the attempt to establish their administration's legitimacy by wooing white support. ... Governor Alcron [of Mississippi] vetoed a bill barring railroads charted by the state from discriminating against black. In 1872, a measure imposing criminal penalties upon ... discrimination passed the legislature... but was mysteriously lost or stolen on its way to the executive mansion and thus failed to become law. Florida Gov. Harrison Reed in 1868 vetoed a bill guaranteeing equal treatment on public conveyances, and Warmoth twice rejected civil rights measures passed by the Louisiana legislature.' (p. 370)

As Southern blacks were battling for their economic and political rights, the Second American Revolution increasingly raised new issues that redrew Northern and national political alliances. The public grew agitated over Corruption, Labour relations and the choice between fiat or metal currencies. Initially, the support for Reconstruction was the one unifying plank of all Republicans, but as Southern opposition to Reconstruction did not dwindle, the Northern enthusiasm for supporting black's rights with the bayonet waned.

In 1870 and 1871, the Grant administration's crack down on the Ku Klux Klan was both effective and popular among Republicans. But as Republicans identified themselves with other issues (chiefly monetary conservatism), Federal support for Reconstruction governments and military intervention in the South became controversial and politically damaging in the North. By the 1876 election, Republicans were no longer committed to Reconstruction, and Redemption (the return to the old order) triumphed in the South, with the reemergence of the Jim Crow regime and the Herrenvolk democracy.

Although Reconstruction was not without lasting achievements, the Southern Counter-revolution undermined much of the political, economic and social advances that blacks won during the Reconstruction era. Furthermore, the Redeemer platforms of small governments, fixed labor relations and white supremacy spelled economic stagnation for Southern whites as well as blacks (p. 597).

Isolated circumstances not withstanding, the movement towards equal rights for blacks, commenced in the Reconstruction era, was not really resumed until the 1930s, and was only completed, if at all, by Civil Rights movement of 1950s and 1960s. As Foner's subtitle indicated, Reconstruction was, and arguably still is, America's Unfinished Revolution

A major undertaking. Eric Foner and Leon Litwack (Been in the Storm so Long) have rescued Reconstruction from the dustbin of history. Each has offered a timely re-exploration into one of the most pivotal periods in American History. For Foner, Reconstruction represents the often forgotten conclusion to the Civil War, an attempt to address the social injustices that resulted from over two centuries of slavery. What is even more compelling about Foner's account is that he absorbs the early women's suffrage movement into this early battle for Civil Rights.

This remarkably well-researched book gives probably the most thorough examination of Reconstruction to date. Foner begins in 1863 with the emancipation proclamation, and carries the era through to 1877, when a fateful compromise was reached by Republicans and Democrats which led to the notorious period of Redemption, in which most of the gains during this period of time were nullified.

Foner covers a tremendous amount of ground. He has uncovered old court records and other valuable information, which demonstrate just how active a role Blacks had in Reconstruction. He notes the seminal work of W.E.B. DuBois (Black Reconstruction in America), which went largely ignored by the "Dunning School," which interpreted Reconstruction as an unmitigated failure in social improvement. Foner, like DuBois, notes how many beneficial social changes came as a result of Reconstruction such as public health, education and welfare. But the Redeemers could hardly stand to see Blacks in power, and fought tooth and nail to re-establish the old social order in the South, finally winning over the Grant administration, which pardoned the Southern states, and allowed them to regain the political ascendency, much to the chagrin of the Radical Republicans, who had been instrumental in shaping the Civil Rights legislation of this time.

This book presents so many revealing portraits. It is as much a social as it is a political history of Reconstruction. Of the many compelling stories was the attempt by Blacks to make a thriving concern of the former Jefferson Davis plantation. Despite the fact that Jefferson Davis' brother had ceded the plantation to the former slaves, the Mississippi courts eventually gave title to Davis' heirs. During this brief halcyon period, the freedmen had made a success of the plantation, never realized under the Davis administration. Foner offers this case, as well as many others, to demonstrate that the former slaves were fully committed to Reconstruction, and so this as the opportunity to gain the social and political ascendency they had long been denied.

One is left to wonder what it might have been like had callous Republicans like Rutherford B. Hayes not sold out Reconstruction, and allowed the process to continue through the late 19th century. Instead, the Redeemers nullified much of what had been gained, leading to the notorious era of Jim Crow.

This is an extremely penetrating, yet low key, history of the reconstructed history of Reconstruction, rescued from the legacy of massive distortion in the century-old genre, beginning in the birth times of Jim Crow and the loss of the hopes of the 'second American Revolution'. All one can say is that it might have been worse, the Union might have sundered. The book details all the phases, good and bad, from the birth of the Klu Klux to the great depression of the seventies, and the loss of focus on the task to be completed.

This is one of those books you can't put down. It takes you through the history of reconstruction, the political fighting, how it played out locally, and how it played out in the elections.
And at the end you realize, this country was on the cusp of moving forward on race. We had it. It wasn't perfect but progress was being made.
And it was all defeated because the republicans hoped to win elections in the south by supporting the old power structure. And so the blacks were sacrificed for votes - and the republicans didn't get the votes anyways.
Absolutely engrossing.