African American resources at Lancaster County Historical Society
The author, Eric Foner, is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography, and has been a member of the faculty at the Columbia University Department of History since 1982. [wikipedia]
Contents
Chapters: The world the war made -- Rehearsals for reconstruction -- The meaning of freedom -- Ambiguities of labor -- The failure of presidential reconstruction -- The making of radical reconstruction -- Blueprints for a Republican south -- Reconstruction : political and economic -- The challenge of enforcement -- The reconstruction of the north -- The politics of depression -- Redemption and after
Summary
"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 ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans." [from the publisher]
Includes bibliographical references (p. 333-393) and index.
Contents
The birth of American freedom -- To call it freedom -- An empire of liberty -- The boundaries of freedom in the young republic -- A new birth of freedom -- Liberty of contract and its discontents -- Progressive freedom -- The birth of civil liberities -- The New Deal and the redefinition of freedom -- Fighting for freedom -- Cold War freedom -- Sixties freedom -- Conservative freedom.