Reconstruction: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #635

by Allen C. Guelzo

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. Among its chief failures was the inability to chart a progressive course for race relations after the abolition of slavery and rise of Jim Crow. Reconstruction also struggled to successfully manage the Southern resistance towards a Northern, free-labor pattern. But the failures cannot obscure a number of notable accomplishments, with decisive long-term consequences for American the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, the election of the first African American representatives to the US Congress, and the avoidance of any renewed outbreak of 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.This Very Short Introduction delves into the constitutional, political, and social issues behind Reconstruction to provide a lucid and original account of a historical moment that left an indelible mark on American social fabric. Award-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo depicts Reconstruction as a "bourgeois revolution" -- as the attempted extension of the free-labor ideology embodied by Lincoln and the Republican Party to what was perceived as a Southern region gone astray from the Founders' intention in the pursuit of Romantic aristocracy.ABOUT THE Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Audiobook

186 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 11, 2019

About the author

Allen Carl Guelzo (born 1953) is the Henry R. Luce III Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, where he serves as Director of the Civil War Era Studies Program.

Reviews

[Ben Bush]

Heads-up: Guelzo is a fellow at the far-right think tank.Claremont Institute (along w/John Eastman, Trump's lawyer who provided the legal argument for the attempted coup, etc.) It's an odd choice on the part of Oxford Univ Press to tap Guelzo to write a history of Reconstruction for the general reader, in the year of our lord 2018 (reissued in 2020). I had started the book without knowing this but ended up reading it in that light.

Because of this, I also spent time with Eric Foner's A Short History of Reconstruction and
DuBois's Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880, both of whom are also more engaging writers than Guelzo. Heather Cox Richardson's scholarship on Reconstruction also seems worth checking out. But this succinct largely informational overview piqued my interest in Reconstruction and clarified what people mean by "Presidential Reconstruction" (not great) and "Congressional Reconstruction (better), etc.

As I read it, I ended up thinking about how Guelzo's view might relate to, for example, right-wing views of Lincoln, not as a figure supporting radical equality, but as someone who provides a precedent for extreme uses of presidential powers, or how some of the SCOTUS cases from that era have been used to conservative ends, etc.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Fairly standard history of Reconstruction 

I traditionally am a fan of these very short introduction books, but I have read enough of them to know that there is a range in the quality. I have not previously read a book by Allen Guelzo although I have heard good things about some of his books. That being said I do think the author choices in this series matter because there can be some very idiosyncratic approaches to the content.

I do not know if Guelzo was a great choice or not, it is beyond my pay grade, but he has been controversial. He was a very vocal critic of the 1619 Project and participated in a much-maligned American history conference at the White House while Trump was president. Guelzo was invited to participate in the 1776 Project, which was a response to the 1619 Project, but did not. (No historian participated.) Guelzo is also a senior fellow at the controversial Clairmont Institute. Guelzo taught at Eastern University for years, not known for its conservatism, and one of the two reviews on Amazon of the book decries it as "woke history."

I had a couple of red flags, first, he calls out David Blight (insinuated) and Eric Foner (by name) as part of a new movement that distorts the Civil War and reconstruction. Personally, I have found both historians very helpful, and my own approach is influenced by them. But it is not clear to me in this book, what exactly he opposes, because in this brief presentation, it seems to mostly agree. TheBligh disagreement is mostly in framing.

Foner book on reconstruction is fairly dominant at this point. And his book on the Reconstruction constitutional amendments I thought was also helpful. The section in this book on the forces of reform within the three main branches of government I thought was a helpful addition because nothing is ever simple. Part of the reality of reconstruction is that it was a fight between the three branches of government about what their post-Civil War roles should be. As Guelzo notes, many brief histories talk about the fight between the executive and legislative branches about who should control reconstruction, but the courts also played a signficant role, and largely it was one that limited the government power, which by default, hindered reconstitution.

The summary of the book is that reconstruction had many goals, but really only accomplished two of them. First, it reunited the country after the Civil War. Blight's contention was that the reunification was done at the cost of Black civil rights. Guelzo has a more positive framing and talks about how other civil wars both lasted longer and had a longer history than the US Civil War. He also emphasizes that a second civil war did not break out and that it was a genuine concern that did not happen. And second, the reconstruction amendments changed the understanding of citizenship. The 14th Amendment created a unified understanding of citizenship and equal protection for former slaves, and the 15th established voting rights for African Americans (males).

Mostly, I think this was a fairly standard reconstruction presentation. It was not an entire failure as it was often presented in the past. And it was not a complete success; the movement into Jim Crow and the role of a culture of white superiority, along with a lack of assistance in moving the formerly enslaved into land ownership and independence, still has implications today.

Republicans did have a problem with corruption, and the weakened Democratic Party meant that the corruption was not dealt with promptly. The courts did limit legislative ability to legally enact reforms like the 1876 Civil Rights Law, which would have done something to help change culture.

I picked this up primarily because it was free with my audible membership. Foner's Second Founding is also free if you have a premium membership on audible. I think both are worth reading.

This review was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/reconstruction-2/

[Balazs · Rating 5 out of 5]

As could be expected from Guelzo - deals with the outstanding issues, of political, social, intellectual and economic history outstandingly well, ties them together in easily comprehensible and sometimes even memorable prose, and - most of all - is balanced and insightful in his evaluations of the main currents, possibilities, personalities, and decisions.

His conclusions - that Reconstruction was a project economically and intellectually inspired by both abolitionism and whiggism that the heirs of Jacksonian democracy were irredeemably hostile to it, not only in the south, but north, that the infighting in the Republican (both white and black) camp in the Deep South added a great obstacle to success, that personalities (Presidents Johnson and Grant) made success even harder to attain, that Reconstruction did achieve the delegitimasation of secession as a means of settling disputes, and restored both the Union and federalism, as well as put the abolition of slavery beyond challenge, and finally for it to have achieved more than this would probably have required an exceedingly costly federal military occupation of the South (thus realizing the Stevens-Sumner plan for territorialization) that no Republican, yet alone Democratic legislator would have been willing to finance are all well-argued, balanced and reasonable.

This book does what good history is supposed to do: helps to understand the meaning of its subject (Reconstruction).

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Allen C. Guelzo is a historian at Princeton University in New Jersey. In 2020, Gulezo published a short introduction to the Reconstruction era in the United States. Many Goodreads reviewers worried that Guelzo, who is a member of the conservative think tank the Claremont Institute in California, would write an extremely partisan view of Reconstruction since the book was published in 2018 and then updated the book in 2020, an extremely partisan time in American politics. I agree with the Goodreads reviewer, Adams Shields that despite these concerns, Guelzo writes a very standard view of Reconstruction. The book does contain critiques of some recent scholarship but not more so than an average book by an academic historian. These critiques are contained in the “Introduction” mainly on pages 9 to 15. I read the book on my Kindle. The book contains a timeline, references, a section on “further readings” (Guelzo 153-159), and an index. The book contains images. The book incorporates the American West into Guelzo’s book on the era of Reconstruction. I found Guelzo’s book to be a well-balanced introduction to the era of Reconstruction. The book contains a short chapter on the Supreme Court during the era of Reconstruction (Guelzo 88-100). I found this book on Reconstruction by Guelzo to be a good introduction to this era of American history. I found the review by the Goodreads reviewer named Adam Shields useful in writing this ‘review.’

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a pretty helpful overview of the Reconstruction era. And given that that time period is relatively limited, I did not feel that the subject matter suffered for lack of depth as much as a broader topic might in a very short introduction.

[Mike Fendrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introductory volume on a very complicated, dark and tragic time in American history. Highly recommend.

[Alexander Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent big-picture overview of the Reconstruction era.

[Eva B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good outline of the topic.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

best book i've read on reconstruction probably

[Audrey Kalman]

Elihu Washburn my new favorite politician ever

[Behrooz Parhami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the unabridged 5-hour audio version of this title (read by Bob Souer, Tantor Audio, 2020).

This is the second book in Oxford’s delightful “Very Short Introduction” series that I have perused in recent weeks (the other one was on beauty). Based on the experience of reading a dozen or so titles, I consider the series as providing excellent summaries for those with a casual interest in learning a new topic and a good starting point for those who want to dig deeper.

In the US, “Reconstruction” refers to a series of programs aimed at reuniting the nation politically, after the Civil War. This book covers aspects of the program spanning the period 1865-1877 in seven chapters, sandwiched between an introduction and an epilogue. The chapters are entitled “Vengeance” (1865), “Alienation” (1865-1867), “Arrogance” (1967-1968), “Resistance” (1868-1869), “Distraction” (1869-1872), “Law” (1866-1876), and “Dissention” (1872-1877).

Unfortunately, Reconstruction achieved just a few of its lofty goals, among them two amendments to the US Constitution (14th, citizenship and equal protection for former slaves; 15th, voting rights for African-Americans), the election of the first African-American to the US Congress, and avoidance of a new civil-war outbreak. What Reconstruction couldn’t accomplish came to pass nearly a century later during the 1950s-1960s Civil Rights Movement.