Changes

[[File: Black-reconstruction-in-america-1860-1880-9780684856575_hr.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684856573/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0684856573&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=eb951949f921722dda1c162e6808613d Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880]''by W.E.B. Du Bois]]

The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time. This book 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, <i>Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880</i> has justly been called a classic. Du Bois history undermined the previous historical works on Reconconstruction written by historians who were from the Dunning the school which openly supported white southerners.

Eric Foner's "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed. <i>Reconstruction</i> 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, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans.

In this prize-winning book Thomas Holt is concerned not only with the identities of the black politicians who gained power in South Carolina during Reconstruction, but also with the question of how they functioned within the political system. Thus, as one reviewer has commented, "he penetrates the superficial preoccupations over whether black politicians were venal or gullible to see whether they wielded power and influence and, if they did, how and to what ends and against what obstacles."