Posted on 09/19/2025 11:46:33 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass
“Reconstruction” in the post antebellum South was not balanced.
If you are a researcher, don’t begin with a biased premise.
I was trying to be be somewhat diplomatic with regard to the various viewpoints on this site.
Can you help out, or not?
I would think asking for pre-Progressive era histories would be enough.
Hampton and His Red Shirts by Alfred B. Williams 1935
“The Angry Scar”
Carter
I think I pointed out that whatever your idea of diplomacy is constitutes a bias.
I cannot help you.
Unfortunately, most of what’s out there is garbage written by “historians” like Howard Zinn and Eric Foner, full blown attempts to rewrite it all.
Both Paul Johnson and Thomas Sowell address reconstruction, but it is included in books dealing with whole history and not one era. You can’t go wrong with these two. “A History of the American People” was one of the best I have read.
W.E.B. DuBois wrote a book about it, I have not read this because I could not get past the fact that he was paid to write articles for Sanger’s “Birth Control Review” that lobbied for the mandatory sterilization of Southern negroes.
Happy hunting!
While the main plot is fictionalized, many of the actual historical events of the era serve as the backdrop of the story and IMHO, help provide a good understanding of the motivations, challenges and social conflict in the post-war deep south. It's exceptionally well-written. It's a relatively thin book and a quick read that left me wondering how the author packed so much story into so few pages.
In short, while not precisely a "Reconstruction History" book, I think it would be very useful to most people in getting a better understanding of the mood and tone of the era for those who lived through it, as well as the chance to enjoy a very well-told story.
Apparently, you just want to argue.
But thanks anyway, for your time.
Thanks!
Thanks!
The earlier post I made got a reply that named a fairly prolific historian of the early 20th century, whose name I unfortunately can't remember.
I actually downloaded an epub of his works, but that was lost as well. Unfortunately, Google is not helpful, as might be expected
As you know, the notion of reconstruction was in fact and function the imposition of the will of northern legislators on the formally seceded states via a hostile military, occupying private lands.
IMHO any treatise on the era beyond 1887 is usually biased.
If I were to do research, I would begin with the Federal occupation of South Carolina, and one man that was in the middle of it……Wade Hampton.
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You may be thinking of Wiliam Archibald Dunning, for whom the Dunning School is named. Check out the Wikipedia article “Dunning School.” At the end it lists 10 prominent scholars in that group (proteges of W.A. Dunning).
Kenneth Stampp was a liberal who opposed the so-called Dunning School which was sympathetic to white Southerners in the Reconstruction period--but later as the profession moved Left he was seen as somewhat right wing. He taught at Berkeley when I was a student there but I never took any of his courses--I wish I had at least snuck in to listen to one of his lectures. Apparently they were something else--I heard them referred to as "the Stampp act."
Check out the Wikipedia articles "Reconstruction Era" (very long with a list of modern works at the end, mostly fairly recent) and "Dunning School" which lists the early 20th-century scholars in this group. The latter article has a quote from Stampp which seems rather balanced--not a full-throated denunciation of the Dunning School but pointing out its shortcomings.
I don’t know if it’s balanced, but the two hosts of this podcast are from the South, and are sympathetic to the South. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bao2dH-SLHw&t=700s
Gordon Wood Perhaps?
I had an old series of his way back in the day.
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