Revolution That Failed
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€29.99
19th Century
A01=Adam Fairclough
American Civil War
Author_Adam Fairclough
Category=JBSL
Category=N
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WQH
civil rights movement
Democrats
elections
emancipation
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Louisiana
parishes
racial equality
Republican Party
slavery
Product details
- ISBN 9780813056623
- Weight: 769g
- Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 27 Feb 2018
- Publisher: University Press of Florida
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The chaotic years after the Civil War are often seen as a time of uniquely American idealism – a revolutionary attempt to rebuild the nation that paved the way for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. But Adam Fairclough rejects this prevailing view, challenging prominent historians such as Eric Foner and James McPherson. He argues that Reconstruction was, quite simply, a disaster, and that the civil rights movement triumphed despite it, not because of it.
Fairclough takes readers to Natchitoches, Louisiana, a majority-black parish deep in the cotton South. Home to a vibrant Republican Party led by former slaves, ex-Confederates, and free people of color, the parish was a bastion of Republican power and the ideal place for Reconstruction to have worked. Yet although it didn’t experience the extremes of violence that afflicted the surrounding region, Natchitoches fell prey to Democratic intimidation. Its Republican leaders were eventually driven out of the parish.
Reconstruction failed, Fairclough argues, because the federal government failed to enforce the rights it had created. Congress had given the Republicans of the South and the Freedmen’s Bureau an impossible task – to create a new democratic order based on racial equality in an area tortured by deep-rooted racial conflict. Moving expertly between a profound local study and wider developments in Washington, The Revolution That Failed offers a sobering perspective on how Reconstruction affected African American citizens and what its long-term repercussions were for the nation.
Fairclough takes readers to Natchitoches, Louisiana, a majority-black parish deep in the cotton South. Home to a vibrant Republican Party led by former slaves, ex-Confederates, and free people of color, the parish was a bastion of Republican power and the ideal place for Reconstruction to have worked. Yet although it didn’t experience the extremes of violence that afflicted the surrounding region, Natchitoches fell prey to Democratic intimidation. Its Republican leaders were eventually driven out of the parish.
Reconstruction failed, Fairclough argues, because the federal government failed to enforce the rights it had created. Congress had given the Republicans of the South and the Freedmen’s Bureau an impossible task – to create a new democratic order based on racial equality in an area tortured by deep-rooted racial conflict. Moving expertly between a profound local study and wider developments in Washington, The Revolution That Failed offers a sobering perspective on how Reconstruction affected African American citizens and what its long-term repercussions were for the nation.
