The Nation Magazine Reviews New Book from Eric Foner on Reconstruction Constitutional Amendments
Historian Michael Kazin has a very favorable review of Eric Foner’s new book The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution….
This May Be Your Last Chance to See “Harriet” in Theaters
Most “small” films get a four week national theatrical release. The new film “Harriet” on Harriet Tubman is now in its fifth week of release,…
Savannah Is Hosting Fans of Frederick Douglass With Art and History Exhibits
The New York Times has an article on why Savannah has become a pilgrimage site for those interested in Frederick Douglass, a man who never…
NY Times: Thoughts on the 150th Anniversary of the Start of U.S. Grant’s Presidency
This is the Sesquicentennial of the Grant Presidency. Jamelle Bouie, New York Times Opinion columnist, has a thoughtful article on the hopes engendered 150 years…
How Reconstruction Fantasy “Song of the South” Became “Splash Mountain” by Dropping All the Black People
Here is the last episode of the podcast Six Degrees of Song of the South which is devoted to the Disney Reconstruction fantasy Song of…
Kevin Levin’s “Searching for Black Confederates” Named a Scholar’s Choice for Favorite History Book of 2019 by Smithsonian Magazine
Yesterday I posted the Smithsonian Magazine’s picks for the best books of 2019. Today I am posting the Civil War/Reconstruction Era books named in the…
Gideon Welles: Democrats Should Have Nominated General Hancock to Run Against Grant 1868
In 1868, Union army commander Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Democrat Horatio Seymour in the presidential race. In his Journal for Nov. 17, 1868, Sec….
Historian James Oakes Writes on Recent Works by Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates
Historian James Oakes writes about recent books, and a PBS documentry from Henry Louis Gates and Eric Foner in this week’s New York Review of…
Historian Manisha Sinha Sees Parallels Between Andy Johnson and Donald Trump
With the impeachment inquiry proceeding in modern Washington, pundits have been raising the examples of earlier impeachments. Nixon, Clinton, and Andrew Johnson are regularly invoked…
George Ashburn Assassinated: The First Klan Murder in Georgia March 1868
George Ashburn was a Southern white man who joined the Union army during the Civil War. In 1867 he was a delegate to the Georgia…