Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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Reconstruction: A Concise History
Written by Allen C. Guelzo
Narrated by Bob Souer
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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About this audiobook
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.
While Reconstruction saw the ratification of the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments, expanding the rights and suffrage of African Americans, it largely failed to chart a progressive course for race relations after the abolition of slavery and the rise of Jim Crow. It also struggled to manage the Southern resistance towards a Northern free-labor economy. However, these failures cannot obscure a number of accomplishments with long-term consequences for American life, among them the Civil Rights Act, the election of the first African American representatives to Congress, and the avoidance of renewed civil war. Reconstruction suffered from poor leadership and uncertainty of direction, but it also laid the groundwork for renewed struggles for racial equality during the civil rights movement.
While Reconstruction saw the ratification of the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments, expanding the rights and suffrage of African Americans, it largely failed to chart a progressive course for race relations after the abolition of slavery and the rise of Jim Crow. It also struggled to manage the Southern resistance towards a Northern free-labor economy. However, these failures cannot obscure a number of accomplishments with long-term consequences for American life, among them the Civil Rights Act, the election of the first African American representatives to Congress, and the avoidance of renewed civil war. Reconstruction suffered from poor leadership and uncertainty of direction, but it also laid the groundwork for renewed struggles for racial equality during the civil rights movement.
Author
Allen C. Guelzo
Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, where he also directs the Civil War Era Studies Program and The Gettysburg Semester. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999) and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (2004), both of which won the Lincoln Prize. He has written essays and reviews for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, the Journal of American History, and many other publications.
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Reviews for Reconstruction
Rating: 4.151515196969697 out of 5 stars
4/5
33 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Impossible to follow without painful levels of concentration due to the absurdly rapid narration. The guy obviously had somewhere to go. Don't know how he gets the work tbh.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I wanted to learn about the subject but couldn't take the narrator. Ok Admiral Akbar clear your throat. Everytime he stops to take a breath ?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A great starting point for me to learn more about this period of history in the USA.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This short book is extraordinary in its selections, in its progressions, in the education the seasoned author provides. Enlightening, infuriating, clarifying. Extraordinary, indeed!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5so concise as to be just about worthless. but not totally.