This book, along with Foner's Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, provides extremely valuable insights into a crucial turning point in American history, which still resonates today. Both are masterpieces of synthesis and interpretation. Both are scholarly and detailed, yet convey a feeling of excitement at the events described. Both enable the reader to relive the tensions, aspirations, thoughts, and struggles of the times they describe.
Foner was a Marxist-Leninist when he wrote both books. But he never allowed his Marxism to vitiate his historical analysis. On the contrary, he constantly emphasized that the motives that propelled the participants were ideas and ideals, not economic interest or social class (e.g., pages 233-4, 468-70, 486-7). Moreover, he pointed out (page xxv) that during Reconstruction "Americans made their first attempt to live up to the noble professions of their political creed - something few societies have ever done:" and (page 279) "Alone among the nations that abolished slavery in the nineteenth century, the United States, within a few years of emancipation, clothed its former slaves with citizen rights equal to those of whites."
I am not competent to comment on Foner's historical accuracy. But most professional historians regard this book as a milestone in Reconstruction analysis. I could find only one inaccuracy. Foner says (pages 18-20) that the Civil War caused unprecedented economic growth in the North. Walter McDougal in The Throes of Democracy (pages 494-5) adduces evidence and cites distinguished historians that the Civil War retarded economic progress in the North. However, this is peripheral to Foner's book.
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