Lenny B
Private
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2024
When academic historian Eric Foner published Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877, in 1988, he noted in the Preface the following:
"Revising interpretations of the past is intrinsic to the study of history. But no part of the American experience has, in the last 25 years, seen a broadly accepted point of view so completely overturned as Reconstruction-the violent, dramatic, and still controversial era that followed the Civil War. Since the early 1960s, a profound alteration of the place of blacks within American society, newly uncovered evidence, and changing definitions of history itself have combined to transform our understanding of race relations, politics, and economic change during Reconstruction. Yet despite this change in consciousness, so to speak, historians have yet to produce a coherent new portrait of the era."
Foner's work meant to rebuke the earlier study of the Reconstruction period by William Dunning and John W. Burgess. In the last paragraph of Foner's Introduction to the 2014 Anniversary Edition, he writes...
"Citizenship, rights, freedom, democracy-as long as these questions remain central to our society, so too will the necessity of an accurate understanding of Reconstruction. These are not only historical and political questions, but moral ones. Reconstruction history has always been morally inflected, because writing about the period forces the historian to think about where he or she stands in relation to key problems of our own time. The Dunning School with its emphasis on the alleged horrors of Republican Reconstruction, provided scholarly legitimation for Jim Crow, black disenfranchisement, and the now long-departed solid Democratic South (My emphasis). Reconstruction revisionism arose in tandem with and provided a usable past for the civil rights movement. More than most historical subjects, Reconstruction history matters. Whatever the ebb and flow of historical interpretations, I hope we never lose sight of the fact that something very important for the future of our society was taking place during Reconstruction."
Compare Foner's attempt in understanding Reconstruction with that of Phil Leigh:
In the article linked below Helen Andrews of the American Conservative magazine suggests that the revisionism that has resulted in today's dominant view of Reconstruction as a noble experiment began in the 1960s when most everyone capable of any memory of the era was dead. Much of the article focuses on a re-issue of W.E.B. duBois 1935 Black Reconstruction.
Why are Andrews and Leigh so uncomfortable with the revisionist history of the Reconstruction period? Are their interpretations anachronistic and stuck in the past?
"Revising interpretations of the past is intrinsic to the study of history. But no part of the American experience has, in the last 25 years, seen a broadly accepted point of view so completely overturned as Reconstruction-the violent, dramatic, and still controversial era that followed the Civil War. Since the early 1960s, a profound alteration of the place of blacks within American society, newly uncovered evidence, and changing definitions of history itself have combined to transform our understanding of race relations, politics, and economic change during Reconstruction. Yet despite this change in consciousness, so to speak, historians have yet to produce a coherent new portrait of the era."
Foner's work meant to rebuke the earlier study of the Reconstruction period by William Dunning and John W. Burgess. In the last paragraph of Foner's Introduction to the 2014 Anniversary Edition, he writes...
"Citizenship, rights, freedom, democracy-as long as these questions remain central to our society, so too will the necessity of an accurate understanding of Reconstruction. These are not only historical and political questions, but moral ones. Reconstruction history has always been morally inflected, because writing about the period forces the historian to think about where he or she stands in relation to key problems of our own time. The Dunning School with its emphasis on the alleged horrors of Republican Reconstruction, provided scholarly legitimation for Jim Crow, black disenfranchisement, and the now long-departed solid Democratic South (My emphasis). Reconstruction revisionism arose in tandem with and provided a usable past for the civil rights movement. More than most historical subjects, Reconstruction history matters. Whatever the ebb and flow of historical interpretations, I hope we never lose sight of the fact that something very important for the future of our society was taking place during Reconstruction."
Compare Foner's attempt in understanding Reconstruction with that of Phil Leigh:
In the article linked below Helen Andrews of the American Conservative magazine suggests that the revisionism that has resulted in today's dominant view of Reconstruction as a noble experiment began in the 1960s when most everyone capable of any memory of the era was dead. Much of the article focuses on a re-issue of W.E.B. duBois 1935 Black Reconstruction.
Why are Andrews and Leigh so uncomfortable with the revisionist history of the Reconstruction period? Are their interpretations anachronistic and stuck in the past?
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