The Wars of Reconstruction
The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
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The Wars of Reconstruction
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Narrado por:
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Eric Jason Martin
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 state’s 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.
©2014 Douglas R. Egerton (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Solid Effort with Great Last Chapter
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Excellent
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Essential reading for all Americans.
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What did you love best about The Wars of Reconstruction?
The matter of fact approach the author used to tell the story of the darkest period in our nations history. He held nothing back, and for anyone wanting to connect the dots from 1865 to 1965 this book draws a straight line.Who was your favorite character and why?
There is no favorite character, but many many despicable actors.What about Eric Martin’s performance did you like?
Good pace, clear and easily understood.Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, it was hard to listen to at times because of the nature of the atrocities committed by white southerners against former slaves and sympathetic whites.Any additional comments?
This book told the story that, in my opinion, should be required telling in every history of the United States. I was only vaguely aware of what the 20 years following the end of the Civil War were like. It is clear that the war never really ended. Rather, the attitudes and mind set of those responsible for the hatred that prevailed then carried through to the civil rights struggles of the 1960's. Unfortunately, in 2018 it still persists.An Eye Opener
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This audiobook narrator pronounces the name of the chief justice of the United States incorrectly---saying TANEY (with a long A as it's spelled) instead of TAWNY as it is properly pronounced. Is it really asking so much that someone look name pronunciations up? The narrator also several times mispronounces Mobile (as in Alabama) as mobile (as in phone). In one place, he even pronounces executor (as in the person who executes the provisions of a will) as execUtor (sounding like someone who has executed someone).
Although the narrator otherwise is fine (if, as some have said a bit flat), someone should have corrected these mispronunciations. It is not his fault. But someone was in charge of this production and should have recognized that mispronunciations like this are like static that get in the way of an otherwise good listen.
Where is the director/producer? Mispronunciations!
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Particularly helpful is the way the book went beyond the 1880's and includes how the historians and fictional writers of the early 20th century tried to rewrite Reconstruction as a vengeful act of a few northern Republicans. Civil rights were not revenge. They were a right for the southern citizens and this book explains how close we were to that change and then how it was all rolled back.
I enjoyed the book and learned more about the time period. I wish the author had spent some more time on the northern social issues during this time. To put little focus on them leaves out the southern argument that Reconstruction was imposing a social order on the South that the North did not have.
Counter to Fictional Accounts
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The
Great Read
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Would you consider the audio edition of The Wars of Reconstruction to be better than the print version?
No, unfortunately the performance would have benefitted from a redo. It wasn't a terrible performance by any means, but the book was so dense with information that the steady, even pace of the narrator made it difficult to process the prose in several parts of the book.What aspect of Eric Martin’s performance would you have changed?
I think several chapters would have benefitted from a more dramatic reading--a wider variety of rhythm and emphasis to make it easier for the readers' ears to parse the prose as it whizzes by.Any additional comments?
The substance of this book is absolutely essential for Americans to know, and this book dives into the details in ways that other history books wouldn't have time to. I learned about the struggles to build public schools in the post-war South, and keep teachers employed in communities so anti-Reconstruction that even teachers' landlords were shunned. I learned about the losing battle this history fought, for generations, against the romanticized view of the South in popular literature like Gone with the Wind and Song of the South.Most importantly, I learned that Reconstruction and the America that led up to it and through it was not so long ago. That history is a living part of who we are as a country. Even though the details of Reconstruction have largely been forgotten, ignored, or rewritten and politically weaponized, it is possible to learn and face the hard truths of that era.
Having been lucky enough to stumble across this book, I'm taking away the lesson that it's possible, even with everything on your side (legions of activists, the law, the moral high ground, constitutional amendments, basic human decency, the White House, both houses of Congress, etc), to lose the fight for equality. It's a hard lesson to learn, but this all happened. And with the US struggling with the question of authoritarian rule in the age of Trump, it's an important thing to keep in mind.
Essential History
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Great book on a under analyzed part of our history
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Great
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