A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

by Eric Foner

Citizenship, rights, freedom, democracy—as long as these questions remain central to our society, so too will the necessity of an accurate understanding of Reconstruction. These are not only historical and political questions, but moral ones. Reconstruction history has always been morally inflected, because writing about the period forces the historian to think about where he or she stands in relation to key problems of our own time.