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Title: The Wars of Reconstruction
Subtitle: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
Author: Douglas R. Egerton
Narrator: Eric Martin
Format: Unabridged
Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-21-14
Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury
Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 80 votes
Genres: History, American
Publisher's Summary:
A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively. In South Carolina, only 20 years after the death of arch-secessionist John C. Calhoun, a black man, Jasper J. Wright, took a seat on the states Supreme Court. Not even the most optimistic abolitionists thought such milestones would occur in their lifetimes. The brief years of Reconstruction marked the United States most progressive moment prior to the civil rights movement. Previous histories of Reconstruction have focused on Washington politics. But in this sweeping, prodigiously researched narrative, Douglas Egerton brings a much bigger, even more dramatic story into view, exploring state and local politics and tracing the struggles of some 1,500 African-American officeholders, in both the North and South, who fought entrenched white resistance. Tragically, their movement was met by ruthless violence - not just riotous mobs, but also targeted assassination. With stark evidence, Egerton shows that Reconstruction, often cast as a failure or a doomed experiment, was rolled back by murderous force. The Wars of Reconstruction is a major and provocative contribution to American history.
Critic Reviews:
"The history of [the] era [of Reconstruction] has rarely if ever been as well told as it is in Douglas R. Egerton's forcefully argued and crisply written The Wars of Reconstruction. Mr. Egerton presents a sometimes inspiring but more often deeply shocking story that reveals the nation at its best and worst." (The Wall Street Journal)
"Egertons study is an adept exploration of a past era of monumental relevance to the present and is recommended for any student of political conflict, social upheaval, and the perennial struggle against oppression." (Publishers Weekly)
"A richly detailed historyAn illuminating view of an era whose reform spirit would live on in the 1960s civil rights movement." ( Kirkus Reviews)