The Great Task Remaining Before Us

Reconstruction as America's Continuing Civil War

Paul A Cimbala editor Randall M Miller editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Fordham University Press

Published:8th Jul '10

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The Great Task Remaining Before Us cover

Through informative case studies, this illuminating book remaps considerations of the Civil War and Reconstruction era by charting the ways in which the needs, interests, and experiences of going to war, fighting it, and making sense of it informed and directed politics, public life, social change, and cultural memory after the war’s end. In doing so, it shows that “the war” did not actually end with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and Lincoln’s assassination in Washington. As the contributors show, major issues remained, including defining “freedom”; rebuilding the South; integrating women and blacks into postwar society, culture, and polities; deciding the place of the military in public life; demobilizing or redeploying soldiers; organizing a
new party system; and determining the scope and meanings of “union.”

"... An impressive array of new scholarship on Reconstruction that explores gender and race relations, the politics of Reconstruction, and historical memory... Recommended." -Choice "... the collection is a good reminder to students of the mid-nineteenth century that in some cases it is more useful to think about the connections and continuities between the years of the war than merely to stop and start narratives at 1865." -Virginia Magazine "This is an important volume that should be read by everyone interested in nineteenth-century America. Editors Cimbala and Miller have assembled an outstanding collection of essays that examine the post-Civil War years from a wide array of vantage points while sharing a common theme: that Reconstruction was in many respects a continuation of the war. This book should serve as a valuable reminder to Americans that, as they prepare to observe the Civil War sesquicentennial, they should be looking ahead to the Reconstruction sesquicentennial and pondering the meaning and legacy of the years 1865-1877." -- -Stephen V. Ash University of Tennessee, author of A Year in the South: 1865 "An unusually strong collection of essays ... the scholarship is impeccable." -- -Gaines M. Foster Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge "Cimbala and Miller have edited an important book that will help historians understand both Reconstruction and its connection to the larger Civil War era." -American Historical Review "Cimbala and Miller offer an extraordinary contribution to the historiography of Reconstruction by demonstrating its enormous diversity. Often misunderstood, Reconstruction was a time of defining liberty and for whom, of rebuilding physically and psychically, of changing and enduring. This collection of sound, thoughtful essays provides an extensive examination of this significant and complex period of U.S. history. A must-read for anyone examining Reconstruction, this book shows that the "great task" still remains before us. -- -Orville Vernon Burton Author The Age of Lincoln

ISBN: 9780823232031

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

200 pages