Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South (American Ways)

Fitzgerald, Michael W.

ISBN 10: 1566637392 / ISBN 13: 9781566637398

Published by Ivan R. Dee, 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # WFBV.1566637392.N

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South (American Ways)
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566637392
• ISBN 13: 9781566637398
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Michael W. Fitzgerald's new interpretation of Reconstruction shows how the internal dynamics of this first freedom movement played into the hands of white racist reactionaries in the South. Splendid Failure recounts how postwar financial missteps and other governance problems quickly soured idealistic Northerners on the practical consequences of the Radical Republican plan, and set the stage for the explosion that swept Southern Republicans from power and resulted in Northern acquiescence to the bloody repression of voting rights. The failed strategy offers a chastening example to present-day proponents of racial equality.

About the Author

Michael W. Fitzgerald teaches American history at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he lives. He is the author of prizewinning articles on aspects of Reconstruction and in two other books has written on the politics of emancipation and of agricultural change in the post―Civil War period.