A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

From the “preeminent
historian of Reconstruction” (New York
Times Book Review), an updated abridged
edition of Reconstruction, the
prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern
America.

Reconstruction chronicles
the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented
changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the quest of
emancipated slaves’ searching for economic autonomy and equal citizenship, and
describes the remodeling of Southern society; the evolution of racial attitudes
and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state
possessing vastly expanded authority and one committed, for a time, to the
principle of equal rights for all Americans.

This “masterful treatment of one
of the most complex periods of American history” (New Republic) remains
the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy
still reverberates in the United States today.