Reconstruction
America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $23.36
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Norman Dietz
-
By:
-
Eric Foner
About this listen
The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.
Eric Foner brilliantly chronicles how Americans, Black and White, responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the Civil War and the end of slavery. He provides fresh insights on a host of other issues, including the ways in which the emancipated slave's 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; Abraham Lincoln's attitude toward Reconstruction; the role of "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags"; and the role of violence in the period.
This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) has become the classic work on the wrenching post-Civil War period, an era whose legacy reverberates in the United States to this day.
©1988 Eric Foner (P)1990 Blackstone AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Forever Free
- The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Joshua Brown - commentator
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on the centrality of the Black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and - even more actively - in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war's end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment.
-
-
Excellent
- By eric lewis on 07-31-23
By: Eric Foner
-
Black Reconstruction in America
- By: W. E. B. Du Bois, David Levering Lewis
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 37 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America has justly been called a classic.
-
-
The textbook you should have had in high school.
- By Saleh on 05-06-18
By: W. E. B. Du Bois, and others
-
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume I, Fort Sumter to Perryville
- By: Shelby Foote
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 42 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac.
-
-
OUTSTANDING! I'M PROUD TO BE A BLACK AMERICAN!!
- By The Louligan on 08-22-13
By: Shelby Foote
-
American Colossus
- The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 23 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a grand-scale narrative history, the bestselling author of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize now captures the decades when capitalism was at its most unbridled and a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen utterly transformed America from an agrarian economy to a world power.
-
-
8 Thoughts on 'American Colossus'
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: H. W. Brands
-
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
-
-
Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
Forever Free
- The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Joshua Brown - commentator
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on the centrality of the Black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and - even more actively - in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war's end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment.
-
-
Excellent
- By eric lewis on 07-31-23
By: Eric Foner
-
Black Reconstruction in America
- By: W. E. B. Du Bois, David Levering Lewis
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 37 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America has justly been called a classic.
-
-
The textbook you should have had in high school.
- By Saleh on 05-06-18
By: W. E. B. Du Bois, and others
-
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume I, Fort Sumter to Perryville
- By: Shelby Foote
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 42 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac.
-
-
OUTSTANDING! I'M PROUD TO BE A BLACK AMERICAN!!
- By The Louligan on 08-22-13
By: Shelby Foote
-
American Colossus
- The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 23 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a grand-scale narrative history, the bestselling author of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize now captures the decades when capitalism was at its most unbridled and a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen utterly transformed America from an agrarian economy to a world power.
-
-
8 Thoughts on 'American Colossus'
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: H. W. Brands
-
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
-
-
Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
Battle Cry of Freedom
- The Civil War Era
- By: James M. McPherson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 39 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Battle Cry of Freedom vividly traces how a new nation was forged when a war both sides were sure would amount to little dragged for four years and cost more American lives than all other wars combined. Narrator Jonathan Davis powerful reading brings to life the many voices of the Civil War.
-
-
Excellent Book
- By J. Weston on 12-11-20
-
Gateway to Freedom
- The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. They are little known to history: Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist newspaper editor; Louis Napoleon, a furniture polisher; Charles B. Ray, a black minister. At great risk they operated the Underground Railroad in New York, a city whose businesses, banks, and politics were deeply enmeshed in the slave economy.
-
-
Hard to stay awake....
- By Chrissie on 02-18-15
By: Eric Foner
-
The Impending Crisis
- America Before the Civil War: 1848-1861
- By: David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis is the definitive history of antebellum America. Potter's sweeping epic masterfully charts the chaotic forces that climaxed with the outbreak of the Civil War: westward expansion, the divisive issue of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's uprising, the ascension of Abraham Lincoln, and the drama of Southern secession.
-
-
A Slog for Sure
- By Brux on 04-13-17
By: David M. Potter, and others
-
How the South Won the Civil War
- Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies....
-
-
Disappointing book that wasted such potential.
- By Amazon Customer on 08-07-21
-
The Invisible Bridge
- The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
- By: Rick Perlstein
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 39 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January of 1973 Richard Nixon announced the end of the Vietnam War and prepared for a triumphant second term - until televised Watergate hearings revealed his White House as little better than a mafia den. The next president declared upon Nixon’s resignation “our long national nightmare is over” - but then congressional investigators exposed the CIA for assassinating foreign leaders. The collapse of the South Vietnamese government rendered moot the sacrifice of some 58,000 American lives.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Tad Davis on 10-03-14
By: Rick Perlstein
-
The Wars of Reconstruction
- The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
- By: Douglas R. Egerton
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Atrocities
- By Tad Davis on 07-05-18
-
White Rage
- The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
- By: Carol Anderson
- Narrated by: Pamela Gibson
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014 and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'Black rage', historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,' she wrote, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.'
-
-
Good History, Was Hoping For More Insight
- By Mike on 09-08-16
By: Carol Anderson
-
The New Jim Crow
- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition
- By: Michelle Alexander
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
-
-
Shocking, Important and Brilliant
- By Tim on 10-06-14
-
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grand in scope, rigorous in its arguments, and elegantly synthesizing 30 years of scholarship, Gordon S. Wood's Pulitzer Prize–winning book analyzes the social, political, and economic consequences of 1776. In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood depicts not just a break with England, but the rejection of an entire way of life: of a society with feudal dependencies, a politics of patronage, and a world view in which people were divided between the nobility and "the Herd."
-
-
Changed the Way I Think
- By Cynthia on 01-04-14
By: Gordon S. Wood
-
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
- By: C. Vann Woodward
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments for segregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it "the historical Bible of the civil rights movement." The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s.
-
-
Worth listening too.... added to the bibliography.
- By Alednam A Uonopk on 01-18-21
By: C. Vann Woodward
-
Fateful Lightning
- A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 26 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South.
-
-
The worst part of this book is it's title
- By Rodney on 11-19-13
By: Allen C. Guelzo
Related to this topic
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Fred271 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Daily Stoic
- 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
- By: Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why have history's greatest minds - from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson along with today's top performers, from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities - embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers a daily devotional of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations.
-
-
Not well made as audio
- By Andreas on 12-27-16
By: Ryan Holiday, and others
-
The Last Days of Cabrini-Green
- By: Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers
- Narrated by: Ben Austen, Patina Miller, Harry Lennix, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.
-
-
A Gripping and Necessary Work
- By booklover on 11-24-24
By: Ben Austen, and others
-
The Parole Room
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ben Austen
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Will Johnnie Veal—convicted of the murder of two police officers in 1970—be granted parole after 50 years in prison? How can he convince the parole board he’s reformed when he insists he’s innocent? What is prison time even supposed to accomplish? These are the questions that propel The Parole Room forward as it builds toward Johnnie’s 20th parole hearing—after 19 rejections.
-
-
Enlightening story & a must read
- By Patsy on 10-07-24
By: Ben Austen
-
The Mastery of Self
- A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
-
-
listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
-
Ho Tactics
- How to MindF**k a Man into Spending, Spoiling, and Sponsoring
- By: G. L. Lambert
- Narrated by: Patrick Stevens
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I have discovered a group of women who refuse to be exploited, are immune to manipulation, and who never settle in the name of love. These ladies know what they want and take what they want by beating men at their own game. Utilizing the secrets exposed in this book, these women gain power, money, and status. Men call them gold diggers, women call them hos, but they call themselves winners. This is the book that society doesn't want you to listen to….
-
-
I spent $24,000 in 4 months
- By B.M. on 10-06-18
By: G. L. Lambert
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Fred271 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Daily Stoic
- 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
- By: Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why have history's greatest minds - from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson along with today's top performers, from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities - embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers a daily devotional of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations.
-
-
Not well made as audio
- By Andreas on 12-27-16
By: Ryan Holiday, and others
-
The Last Days of Cabrini-Green
- By: Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers
- Narrated by: Ben Austen, Patina Miller, Harry Lennix, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.
-
-
A Gripping and Necessary Work
- By booklover on 11-24-24
By: Ben Austen, and others
-
The Parole Room
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ben Austen
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Will Johnnie Veal—convicted of the murder of two police officers in 1970—be granted parole after 50 years in prison? How can he convince the parole board he’s reformed when he insists he’s innocent? What is prison time even supposed to accomplish? These are the questions that propel The Parole Room forward as it builds toward Johnnie’s 20th parole hearing—after 19 rejections.
-
-
Enlightening story & a must read
- By Patsy on 10-07-24
By: Ben Austen
-
The Mastery of Self
- A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
-
-
listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
-
Ho Tactics
- How to MindF**k a Man into Spending, Spoiling, and Sponsoring
- By: G. L. Lambert
- Narrated by: Patrick Stevens
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I have discovered a group of women who refuse to be exploited, are immune to manipulation, and who never settle in the name of love. These ladies know what they want and take what they want by beating men at their own game. Utilizing the secrets exposed in this book, these women gain power, money, and status. Men call them gold diggers, women call them hos, but they call themselves winners. This is the book that society doesn't want you to listen to….
-
-
I spent $24,000 in 4 months
- By B.M. on 10-06-18
By: G. L. Lambert
-
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
-
-
it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
-
MOVE: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy
- By: Curtis Bryant, Kevin Arbouet
- Narrated by: Tariq Trotter
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This searing audio documentary brings listeners deep inside the unforgettable story of MOVE, gaining unprecedented access to surviving MOVE members, elected officials from the era, eyewitnesses, and historians to create an indelible portrait of an American tragedy.
-
-
Balanced Examination of History
- By James Peacock on 08-14-24
By: Curtis Bryant, and others
-
Caffeine
- How Caffeine Created the Modern World
- By: Michael Pollan
- Narrated by: Michael Pollan
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Pollan, known for his best-selling nonfiction audio, including The Omnivores Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind, conceived and wrote Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World as an Audible Original. In this controversial and exciting listen, Pollan explores caffeine’s power as the most-used drug in the world - and the only one we give to children (in soda pop) as a treat.
-
-
Leaves much to be desired
- By Melody H on 02-02-20
By: Michael Pollan
-
Mythology: Mega Collection
- Classic Stories from the Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Mythology
- By: Scott Lewis
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser, Oliver Hunt
- Length: 31 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
-
-
An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
-
I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)
- Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power
- By: Brené Brown
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity. Our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses; they are powerful reminders to keep our hearts and minds open to the reality that we're all in this together.
-
-
I'm sure its great if you are a mother ....
- By Leslie A Hill on 08-09-11
By: Brené Brown
-
The Strange Death of Europe
- Immigration, Identity, Islam
- By: Douglas Murray
- Narrated by: Robert Davies
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth rates, mass immigration, and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive alteration as a society and an eventual end.
-
-
Fear-mongering
- By Kat Cat on 01-22-19
By: Douglas Murray
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Reconstruction (Updated Edition)
- America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 31 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
By: Eric Foner
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
A Short History of Reconstruction (Updated Edition)
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Educational
- By Michael G Morgan on 08-31-24
By: Eric Foner
-
Reconstruction
- A Concise History
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The era known as Reconstruction is one of the unhappiest times in American history. It succeeded in reuniting the nation politically after the Civil War but in little else. Conflict shifted from the battlefield to the Capitol as Congress warred with President Andrew Johnson over just what to do with the South. Johnson's plan of Presidential Reconstruction, which was sympathetic to the former Confederacy, would ultimately lead to his impeachment and the institution of Radical Reconstruction.
-
-
Very Well Done
- By Rob Welch on 08-20-21
By: Allen C. Guelzo
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
Gateway to Freedom
- The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. They are little known to history: Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist newspaper editor; Louis Napoleon, a furniture polisher; Charles B. Ray, a black minister. At great risk they operated the Underground Railroad in New York, a city whose businesses, banks, and politics were deeply enmeshed in the slave economy.
-
-
Hard to stay awake....
- By Chrissie on 02-18-15
By: Eric Foner
-
Reconstruction (Updated Edition)
- America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 31 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
By: Eric Foner
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
A Short History of Reconstruction (Updated Edition)
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Educational
- By Michael G Morgan on 08-31-24
By: Eric Foner
-
Reconstruction
- A Concise History
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The era known as Reconstruction is one of the unhappiest times in American history. It succeeded in reuniting the nation politically after the Civil War but in little else. Conflict shifted from the battlefield to the Capitol as Congress warred with President Andrew Johnson over just what to do with the South. Johnson's plan of Presidential Reconstruction, which was sympathetic to the former Confederacy, would ultimately lead to his impeachment and the institution of Radical Reconstruction.
-
-
Very Well Done
- By Rob Welch on 08-20-21
By: Allen C. Guelzo
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
Gateway to Freedom
- The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. They are little known to history: Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist newspaper editor; Louis Napoleon, a furniture polisher; Charles B. Ray, a black minister. At great risk they operated the Underground Railroad in New York, a city whose businesses, banks, and politics were deeply enmeshed in the slave economy.
-
-
Hard to stay awake....
- By Chrissie on 02-18-15
By: Eric Foner
-
American Midnight
- The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
-
-
Disturbing yet Reassuring
- By Sams95 on 11-18-22
By: Adam Hochschild
-
The Counter-Revolution of 1776
- Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
- By: Gerald Horne
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.
-
-
A revelation, a paradigm shift and a new view
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-28-18
By: Gerald Horne
-
Forever Free
- The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Joshua Brown - commentator
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on the centrality of the Black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and - even more actively - in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war's end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment.
-
-
Excellent
- By eric lewis on 07-31-23
By: Eric Foner
-
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
-
-
Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
-
The Impending Crisis
- America Before the Civil War: 1848-1861
- By: David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis is the definitive history of antebellum America. Potter's sweeping epic masterfully charts the chaotic forces that climaxed with the outbreak of the Civil War: westward expansion, the divisive issue of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's uprising, the ascension of Abraham Lincoln, and the drama of Southern secession.
-
-
A Slog for Sure
- By Brux on 04-13-17
By: David M. Potter, and others
-
The Enlightenment
- The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
- By: Ritchie Robertson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 40 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magisterial history - sure to become the definitive work on the subject - recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.
-
-
The quickest 40 hour audio book I’ve listen to
- By Joey Caster on 04-02-21
-
Reconstruction and the Rise of Jim Crow
- 1864-1896
- By: Christopher Collier, James Lincoln Collier
- Narrated by: Jim Manchester
- Length: 1 hr and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Reconstruction and Rise of Jim Crow describes the fallout of the Civil War, whose aftermath left the United States South angry and poor. This book details the struggles to decide how to deal with the newly freed slaves, through the years of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, sharecropping, and segregation. The storyline also sets the stage for the country’s next battle, which is between the Jim Crow laws and the 14th and 15th Amendments.
-
-
Excellent quality, but lacking in quantity
- By MelFC on 11-13-17
By: Christopher Collier, and others
-
The Art of Resistance
- My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
- By: Justus Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, 16-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south.
-
-
Rosenberg, Please focus
- By Jess on 03-20-22
By: Justus Rosenberg
-
Black Reconstruction in America
- By: W. E. B. Du Bois, David Levering Lewis
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 37 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America has justly been called a classic.
-
-
The textbook you should have had in high school.
- By Saleh on 05-06-18
By: W. E. B. Du Bois, and others
-
Gettysburg
- By: Stephen W. Sears
- Narrated by: Jaime Renell
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The greatest of all Civil War campaigns, Gettysburg was the turning point of the turning point in our nation’s history. Volumes have been written about this momentous three-day battle, but recent histories have tended to focus on the particulars rather than the big picture: on the generals or on single days of battle—even on single charges—or on the daily lives of the soldiers. In Gettysburg Sears tells the whole story in a single volume.
-
-
A Fresh Analysis of The Most Examined Battle in US History
- By Dana D. on 07-30-24
By: Stephen W. Sears
-
The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic
- Reconstruction, 1860-1920
- By: Manisha Sinha
- Narrated by: Deepa Samuel
- Length: 21 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping narrative that remakes our understanding of perhaps the most consequential period in American history, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic shows how the great contest of that age is also the great contest of our age—and serves as a necessary reminder of how young and fragile our democracy truly is.
-
-
Managing through narration
- By Julie on 06-18-24
By: Manisha Sinha
-
The Fires of Jubilee
- Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion
- By: Stephen B. Oates
- Narrated by: Ryan Vincent Anderson
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fierce slave rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831 and the savage reprisals that followed shattered beyond repair the myth of the contented slave and the benign master and intensified the forces of change that would plunge America into the bloodbath of the Civil War. Stephen B. Oates, the celebrated biographer of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., presents a gripping and insightful narrative of the rebellion - the complex, gifted, and driven man who led it, the social conditions that produced it, and the legacy it left.
-
-
Such a sad tale……
- By Amazon Customer on 01-09-22
By: Stephen B. Oates
What listeners say about Reconstruction
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brent
- 05-03-18
required reading for any American
This is an extremely important book. the narrator is a bit much at times, but you will learn to understand America much better by reading this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Raymond
- 12-27-23
An Amazing History
This book puts togather the historical context that has founds the last 150 years of american history. A must listen for those interested in sociatal structures and black rights
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 08-06-24
The doctrine of unintended consequences writ large
Broad, through treatment of the complex political and social upheaval that continues to affect us today.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Melvin Randolph
- 01-16-19
Informative!
The Reconstruction book provided me with the America history lesson that should have been taught in school. This book in an Informative and necessary read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 08-05-20
Excellent history that High School failed to teach
Realized that I didn't learn much about reconstruction in High School beyond carpet baggers & scalawags. Foner does a great job cover the whole of reconstruction & it's ultimate failure to extend universal suffrage to the new freedmen.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam Shields
- 09-19-17
Poor quality audio, but the book was great
Over the past year I have realized how large my historical blind spots have been from the end of the Civil War until roughly the Civil Rights era. That 100 year era was almost completely absent from my education and I just didn’t realize how much that absence mattered until I kept running up against that missing historical era when reading about modern racial issues.
When I asked around multiple people suggested that I start with Eric Foner. He has several books that are roughly around this era including a shorter edition of this book that is on sale right now. There are two edition of this book and I picked the older edition because it was the one that was available on Audible as an audiobook. (The audiobook really is poorly done, lots of editing problems, lots of mispronounced words, lots of sound issues.)
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution was originally published in 1988, nearly 30 years ago with the conscious purpose of countering the myths of reconstruction that had grown up as part of the Lost Cause movement and the later Jim Crow and segregation eras. Much of the early history of Reconstruction was written in the 1920-50s from the perspective of Southern historians. Foner was the first major historian of the late 20th century to counter that myth (and I am using myth in the academic method as a founding story, not just as a false narrative.) Foner does note that WEB DuBois book Black Reconstruction in America, had many similar themes, but was largely ignored by academic historians who had adopted the common narrative for the failure of Reconstruction.
The short version of the book is that the failure of Reconstruction was a mix of economic problems, government corruption (this was present in both parties, but the Republicans as the majority party, and the party of former slave office holders in the South was blamed more strongly) and fatigue of the problems of Reconstruction, not freed Black office holders, carpet baggers and scalawags.
There were several major periods of Reconstruction. Foner starts with 1963, when the Union Army occupied large areas of the south and under the Emancipation Proclamation, operated an Army run Reconstruction until the end of the war. During this period and the next period, Foner suggests that there was far more self directed movement among newly freed slaves to lift themselves up and build institutions and community than is generally assumed.
The second major period was Presidential Reconstruction from the end of the war until Congress was convened in December 1865, but essentially there was little push back against President Johnson’s actions until roughly the first quarter of 1866. Congressional Reconstruction then runs from the Civil Rights Act of 1866 until its failure in 1877.
There is far too much history here to summarize. So I want to just comment on a couple of the themes of the book. First, there was really not a wide-spread cultural shift at the end of the war, either among White Northerners or plantation Southerners, both were still predominately (not exclusively, but predominately) operating under a concept of White Supremacy. It ranged from a soft paternalism that was attempting to educate and train former slaves to a hard version that viewed former slaves as little more than animals. That cultural attitude was not widely addressed, and in addition to the above reasons for the end of Reconstruction, make it easy to see how Reconstruction failed.
The myth of reconstruction is that slaves right after slavery were lost and in need of help. There was poverty and economic devastation in the wake of the Civil War, but many slaves actually did fairly well, they established churches and schools and subsistence farming very quickly. But soon the African-American schools were absorbed into government school systems or Northern charity schools and the African-American teachers were pushed out. That happened less with Black churches, but Black controlled institutions of all sorts that grew up in the years soon after the end of the Civil War were either overtly terrorized by armed violence or were quietly absorbed into White institutions and Black leadership was pushed out.
Corruption was a huge governmental problem in the post Civil War. Part of what lead me to pick up this book was reading a biography of Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt largely made his name and reputation fighting government corruption. That same corruption that he fought was part of the reality of Reconstruction. Some Reconstruction funds were misused. But a bigger problem with government investment in railroads and other infrastructure projects. Much of the investments were designed more to make legislators and businesses rich than to improve the overall economy or infrastructure of local states.
This was made worse by historic inequities in southern tax systems. Large plantations often paid little or no taxes while independent small businesses or low-income individuals paid a significant percentage of their income in taxes. In the wake of the devastation after the Civil War, there was no cash to pay taxes. And the previous bias against taxes (with government backing of railroad bonds which later failed) left many states near bankruptcy. The lack of funds then cut into legitimate projects like local schools.
It is amazing to read how much many White Planters and businesses expected to be able to treat former slaves as if nothing had changed. One of the first movements of freed slaves was to form legal families. The breakup of informal families prior to the Civil War (mostly through slave sales, but also through other owner restrictions) was a great indignity that former slaves wanted to prevent. Many women dropped out of the labor force and many children were enrolled in schools. Under slavery group arrangements for food and clothing and housing was more economically efficient but was a vestige of slavery. Families wanted to be able to cook on their own and have their own homes and garden plots. Employers wanted women and children to work the fields. Employment contracts attempted to control marriage, what employees did off their work time, to require all adults (and sometimes children) in the homes of employees to work during harvest, etc. In short, return to a virtual slavery.
Former slaves wanted to focus on subsistence farms, buy land if possible and in many cases stay away from labor situations that had overseers (and the desire to keep women out of field was in part to protect them from the sexual abuse and rape that was common by White overseers). It is hard for me to think that the Northern business assumption was that free labor would be more efficient that slave labor. Slave labor was controlled, beaten and literally owned. Freed labor was trying to establish institutions and lives outside of cotton. The myth of the ‘lazy negro’ was really a result of former slaves not desiring to spend 18-20 hours a day working in the field under whips and threats of death. But White Supremacy as a cultural idea meant that both Southern Whites and Northern business people presumed that former slaves should not be allowed to enter into their own labor contracts and even when allowed to enter freely into labor contracts, the lower yields in crops was used as an example not of the problems of the cotton system or slavery, but of lazy workers that needed government intervention.
Some of the labor laws (the Black Codes) that were passed after reconstruction were frankly incredible. These included:
-Opposition to labor unions.
-Government or private ability to remove children and bind children or teens to unpaid labor for training.
-Disrespect of authority became a crime that could require a year of forced labor apprenticeships (Some required apprenticeships were of non-minors).
-Labor contract sometimes included rights of boss to require approval of purchases.
-Some labor contracts required all adults in household to work when called (compelling women to work against their will and weakening marriage boundaries).
-Required job contract for a full year, and making civil contract of labor a criminal liability. Not having a labor contract was a crime, violating a labor contract was a crime, competing for a contract or negotiating a contract was a crime.
-Petty theft was made a significant crime. Part of the issue here is that some theft was made up. Some was ‘theft’ where the freeman was stealing the equivalent of wages that were withheld for trumped up reasons. But again, the focus was on keeping blacks as laborers and not owners
-Licensing requirements that only allowed Blacks to work as farm labor. Any skilled black workers were blocked out of the economy through licensing requirements that were unevenly applied only against non-Whites. This particularly hurt communities Blacks that were free before the war and those that were more likely to be educated (i.e. those that were more likely to have ability to protest, write, and become community leaders.)
-Pastors were required to be licensed and approved, this was sometimes a continuation of pre-war policy, but for the same basic reasons.
-Hunting was restricted (as was collecting of berries and other wild foods) in order to prevent substance work outside of regular labor contracts. In Georgia, hunting was banned on Sundays, which was the only day off for most field laborers. Gun ownership was banned and the use of dogs for hunting was restricted.
Already in 1867, there was a movement away from public education so that Black children would not be educated, or at least not at public expense. In another case, Blacks were taxed separately for Black schools while White schools were paid for out of general tax funds, which included taxes by paid by Blacks. In the only state with a wide spread public education system it was disbanded and private systems that was still tax supported but in a way that kept Black children out also eliminated the education of poor White students.
One interesting issue is that there was discussion about whether newly freed slaves would be better served by breaking apart large plantations and giving each former slave land or whether they would be better off in the long term with the right to vote, many of the radical Republicans believed that suffrage (the right to vote) was more important. It was thought that both was impossible, because breaking up land required federal government confiscation of land, which would make it politically impossible to bring the former Confederate states back into the government. Universal (male) suffrage was acceptable to the South, only if there was weak Federal government control of the process of return of the states.
What is ironic is that in the method, former slave both did not get land and only a few years later, the right to vote was significantly restricted, in part because of lack of economic opportunities available. And the end of political Reconstruction was largely based on Northern resistance to Federal enforcement of voting rights. Black voters were intimidated, threatened and killed and in some cases winning officials were simply ignored and losing officials forced their way into office through violence. After several years of voting intimidation and violence of the KKK and other groups, the Reconstruction era was over and the rise of Jim Crow and legal segregation arose. It took approximately 80 years after the fall of Reconstruction until the rise of the modern Civil Rights movement to reassert Black voting rights, which eventually required federal oversight, something that was not politically possible in 1877.
As I said above, the audio quality of the audiobook was poor. And because this book focused on many states that were often moving in similar, but not exactly the same direction, it felt a bit repetitive at times. I wish I would have read the second edition (I really wish that the second edition had a good audiobook) to see if some of the writing had been cleaned up.
But there was more than enough here to help me see holes in my understanding and to feed into areas where I need to read more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
24 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- James Wilson
- 01-15-21
Thorough, but disorganized
The author includes a vast amount of detail and easily convinced the reader that Reconstruction was a failure. However, his decision to organize the book topically instead of chronologically and his inconsistent bouncing from State to state and from the states to the federal government made the advancement of the history very difficult to follow at times.
I also felt that the role of the US presidents (other than Andrew Johnson) was glossed over. Maybe it is my own modern bias, but it is hard to believe that Grant played the minimal role in Reconstruction presented in this book.
Finally, as several people have noted, the quality of the audio recording is very poor. It was like listening to a 1950s radio program.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gawel
- 11-09-20
Absolutely fascinating
Even though I am quite interested in this topic, I was sure I would start skipping parts of the book, possibly doze off a few times, and most likely not finish this book. I was so wrong!
This book, even though filled with lots of facts and dates, is absolutely fascinating. There wasn’t a part I wanted to skip. I found new and very interesting information almost on every single page! Before I knew it, I finished the 24 hours in a matter of a four evenings. It’s like a reconstruction era bible! I will eagerly reach back for the book in the future, and I’d recommend it to any fellow history nerd.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Black Fin Grouper
- 09-25-16
Reasonably good book, sometimes overly detailed
I like the details that the author provides, sometimes the endless political machinations get to be difficult to follow and redundant. This is probably true of the era, but for a historical tome it can be difficult to follow.
The reader is a huge detriment to this book. His is monotone and uses little voice variation even in his most emphatic moments. I turned the speed up to two times normal and found myself able to feel more interested in the performance.
All in all, a very interesting book about a very to tumultuous time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- William C Walker
- 01-13-18
Worth Every Minute!
Illuminating! Aids the understanding of our counrty's past as well as the present. I'd call it essential.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!