The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction

The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction (The Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)

For a generation, scholarship on the Reconstruction era has rightly focused on the struggles of the recently emancipated for a meaningful freedom and defined its success or failure largely in those terms. In The Ordeal of the Reunion, Mark Wahlgren Summers goes beyond this vitally important question, focusing on Reconstruction's need to form an enduring Union without sacrificing the framework of federalism and republican democracy. Assessing the era nationally, Summers emphasizes the variety of conservative strains that confined the scope of change, highlights the war's impact and its aftermath, and brings the West and foreign policy into an integrated narrative. In sum, this book offers a fresh explanation for Reconstruction's demise and a case for its essential successes as well as its great failures. Indeed, this book demonstrates the extent to which the victors' aims in 1865 were met--and at what cost.

Summers depicts not just a heroic, tragic moment with equal rights advanced and then betrayed but a time of achievement and consolidation, in which nationhood and emancipation were placed beyond repeal and the groundwork was laid for a stronger, if not better, America to come.
Country USA
Brand University of North Carolina Press
Manufacturer Univ of North Carolina Pr
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber black & white halftones
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781469617572
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	University of North Carolina Press
Manufacturer	Univ of North Carolina Pr
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	black & white halftones
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781469617572
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction (The Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)

You might also like...