West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War

Heather Cox Richardson's West of Appomattox is a work that puts forth the idea that between Reconstruction and 1901 Americans struggled, yet eventually redefined a vision of their nation. Perhaps the most interesting component of Richardson's work, is that in her research, which included "newspapers, novels, memoirs...histories...paintings...[and] music" she discovered the dominant force for creating American's vision of individualism, which was the American west. Along the way, Richardson's work reveals the roots of Frederick Jackson Turner's vision of America based on a culturally created imagery of individualism.Richardson's work is organized chronologically, starting with the chapter "Spring 1865: The View From The Civil War" and ending with "1898-1901: Reunion." Two themes emerge early on in the work. First, there was a unifying force between North and South, and that was the West, and a desire to exterminate Indians. Regardless of the philosophical struggle between free-labor and slave-labor, it is clear that the Native Americans were an inconvenience that fit in neither camp's vision of a post-war America.More central to Richardson's work however, is the vision of a political struggle that would accompany reconstruction. It was government that would have to make a harmonious free-labor society work after the war, and how this was going to happen was the "most important question of the day." Richardson does an admirable job of illustrating the Northerner's cognitive dissonance. On the one hand they believed in government reconstruction, but on the other, they were nervous about the cost of the continued military occupation in the South.While reconstruction was grinding forward, other northern distractions would begin to shift attention away from reconstruction. The "perceived political danger" posed by immigrant labor, the rising issues of gender, and the plight of urbanization would begin to overtake the issues in the South. Strikers and "lazy African-Americans in southern governments" were incongruent to the hard-working American middle class vision defined by Richardson as free-labor.By the mid-1870s, Republicans were losing their political grip. Democrats pushed free-labor hot spots with rhetoric that demanded civil-service reform and lower tariffs while the Republicans had "little to offer voters other than their destruction of slavery." When the democrat Wade Hampton won the contentious governorship in South Carolina, and the Republican's had to be removed from their statehouse occupation by force, the end of reconstruction became a foregone conclusion. Hayes's election to the presidency, predicated on his bowing to the will of the South, shifted the attention of the middle-class permanently away from the South.By the mid-1880s, it was clear that Richardson's mainstream Americans had rejected a government that "responded to the special interests" and began to accept the idea of a Progressive government that would benefit the "general interest" of the people. Government intervention was okay, as long as it was intervention that ran parallel to mainstream America's free-labor ideals. This was an ominous sign for labor, Indians, and African-Americans who did fit into the middle class's vision of America.While the Indians never would fit into the mainstream American vision, African-Americans with the help of Booker T. Washington would at least placate the middle class. The vision of how society and technology should be was well represented in 1893 at the World's Fair in Chicago, a harbinger in the belief of American progress. While Populists and organized labor seemed to some to be a hedge against big government, the contemporaneous spin machines viewed them as a threat to "place government into the hands of a mob." McKinley's victory began to define what the mainstream's vision was.Meanwhile, gold in Bonanza Creek, John Muir's promotion of nature, and Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders would begin to coalesce the ideal that the true individualist was found in the West. With the blending of Progressivism and Manifest Destiny, the Cuban crisis was a timely event. Appealing to both the humanitarian and expansionist American emotion, America was "primed for a struggle." Richardson begins to round out her Western thesis by bringing "impatient Westerners" into the Cuban fold. Frank James, Buffalo Bill, and Roosevelt's cowboys were itching for a fight in Cuba--the real individualists, the real Americans.While Frederick Jackson Turner may have closed the frontier, Teddy Roosevelt reopened it, and for Richardson, it was that opening that redefined America. Richardson's thesis, that Americans "hammered out a national identity" between 1865 and 1901 that united around an image of rugged American West individualism is on its surface a Turnerian view of America, but Turner based his thesis on the tangible--land. Richardson's frontier is a vision, emotionally constructed by American's searching for redefinition after 1865.Her research, based on primary cultural sources, goes far to back her argument and she brings her thesis forward to today, with Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush's Western persona as proof of the enduring nature of the cowboy imagery. Today's candidates such as the maverick and the rogue along with Texas Rick Perry continue to attest to the popularity of the Western image in both politics and American popular culture.

I have read excerpts of this book elsewhere, so I don't doubt the quality of the effort. The problem is with the Kindle (digital) book. The publisher did not obtain rights to include certain illustrations in electronic media. They refer you to the printed book to view these images. Unfortunately, this happens THROUGHOUT the book (I stopped counting at ten, then returned it for a refund). Just wanted to let you know in advance so you are not negatively surprised.

An altogether worthwhile read. Writing in a crisp, eminently readable style, the author succeeds in peeling back the veneer of post-Civil War America as "the land of the free and the home of the brave," where freedom, equality, and opportunity purportedly abounded for anyone with the gumption to go after their dreams. While not denying America's greatness as an experiment in democracy, Cox Richardson does not shirk from pointing out the contradictions and cross-currents that inform the great sweep of American history--in this case the history of the U.S. during the latter half of the 19th century. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who desires to gain a fuller understanding of what America was about during that period and how that legacy has endured to varying degrees right up to the present day. Frankly, I wish I had absorbed this knowledge years ago; nevertheless, I am grateful to have acquired it at all. I congratulate Professor Cox Richardson on performing a valuable service. This appellation applies to her other books as well, particularly the volume with the intriguing title HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR.

I've come across Heather Cox Richardson via her excellent daily Facebook feed about the state of American politics. She is an historian at Boston College who uses many sources to glean the important things going on in the world of American politics and history, she has no allegiance to any news sources, which I find refreshing.I picked this book up via her posts and found it interesting in that this time period certainly plays an important part in setting up the America we see today, especially on the great divide. Having read extensively about the causes of the American Civil War as a history major at University, and of Lincoln, my favourite American president, I had not read much about the aftermath of the war. It was eye opening but mostly depressing. Heather mostly believes that the North won the battle, but lost the war. Today white Southerners still control much of the destiny of America (ie Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz to name a few), which makes for difficult reading. I found this book interesting, but far from enjoyable.

The patterns of thought recognized and articulated in this book are critical to understand in order to bring our current political imbroglio into focus. We are still fighting and re-fighting ideological battles of the past by talking past each other without recognizing the historical roots of our disagreements. This book proves Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s thesis stated in The Cycles of American History that political and social issues re-emerge in cycles, and define the struggle which makes America.

Heather Cox Richardson’s explanation of Reconstruction is excellent and adds to my understanding of the role of history in today’s politics.However the Kindle version of this book is poor. Letters are mis-transcribed from print to digital, especially the “f”s. I am only partway through, and I find illustrations missing because permission was denied for the digital version.A digital book costs almost as much as a print version; it should deliver the same quality and information.

Thank you Heather