4/5

One of the more approachable books on reconstruction I’ve ever read. I really liked the authors analogy of the French republican system to describe the transformation of reconstruction and its ‘unraveling’ following 1877. The chapters describing the violence in the south remain difficult to read, as is any book on the subject. The chapters on the women’s movement and its connection to reconstruction were very good at pulling a through line, but left me a little more unsatisfied as it didn’t really connect to the larger changes brought on by the first World War and progressive/populist movements. I think a book synthesizing these arguments and Michael McGerr’s ‘A Fierce Discontent’s examination of progressivism and segregation would really be cooking some interesting arguments about the transformation of the United States at the end of the 19th Century.