The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States) Reprint Edition

The thirty-year period in US history between Lincoln's death and the end of the century is "flyover history" - barely touched on in most American history classes. All I remember learning from my own history classes is the stories of Andrew Johnson's impeachment from JFK's Profiles In Courage, "Reconstruction" - consisting of carpetbaggers and scalawags, the "Gilded Age" - with tycoons like Carnegie and Rockefeller and then Teddy Roosevelt appears.Boy was I misinformed.If you're a patriot and believe that the U.S. has always been the bright shining beacon of hope for the world, then this book will make you uncomfortable. As the country went through a 30-year period of explosive growth of industrialization, innovation and immigration, the government actively sponsored/supported ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, pogroms against the Chinese, the subjugation of labor and the suppression of unions, a successful terrorist campaign against equal rights for newly freed African Americans, and the triumph of business and the outsourcing of the functions of the government to corporations. In sum, the U.S. in the late 19th century is best characterized as brutal and corrupt - and not a pleasant place for most people.And yet, it was still the destination for millions of immigrants looking for a better life.This book is not popular history. Many will be offended and call it "revisionist history."If you were raised as I was on the official story this is 900 pages of eye-opening history that made me both uneasy on where we came from and hopeful given how far we've come. There was no guarantee that the country would end up being more just, however by the end of the 20th century "the arc of the moral universe was long, but it did bend toward justice." The U.S. is still in many ways flawed but is a much fairer, freer, kinder and self-aware nation.At many points in our history we may take steps backwards in our politics and policies but reading this book gave me a much clearer perspective on how far we have come.The bad news is that even if you're a fan of history this book is a difficult read. It took me a month to get through it. There's too much to absorb reading it once or even 10 times. But reading it will make you a better informed citizen.

Intro: Comprehensive view of Reconstruction to 1900s. Politics, power, culture, western expansion and industrialization. It would be impossible to address everything this book covers so I'll stick with a couple of the central themes.The ideal of "home" is a theme that ties much of the book together. At end of Civil War the prototypical "home" was a self-sufficient farmer or small tradesman in a town like Springfield, Illinois. By the end of the century "home" had transitioned to an apartment in a big city like Chicago with the wage-starved tenants barely able to get by.The idea of home was part of the drive to eradicate the Native Americans. They were depicted in popular culture as the enemy of families in the west. Native Americans had to be murdered to keep homes of the white settlers "safe".Likewise, the newly freed blacks were seen as a threat to the idyllic white home of the South. Laws and culture were built up to protect the white people's homes by squashing Blacks. The chapters on the systematic denigration of Blacks is more than depressing, it is sickening. Andrew Johnson - Lincoln's Vice President who became president following the 16th president's assassination - was racist from start to finish. In addition the North lost its appetite for pursuing equal opportunity following the Civil War. As a result the Ku Klux Klan worked hand-in-glove with Southern politicians to effectively deprive Blacks - through intimidation and murder - the right to vote or work as anything other than sharecroppers. Since they were now workers instead of property (slaves) the Whites physically mistreated the freed people even worse than they had prior to their emancipation.Throughout the book we read how corrupt the upper levels of society and politicians were. The author details the building of the railroads which settled the American West. The railroads were given tens of thousands of miles of territory. Financing was done through back office deals and outright bribery of Congressmen and Senators. They were so badly managed it's a minor miracle they were built at all. Nevertheless, Jay Gould and the other heads of the railroads reaped enormous profits.My biggest take away was how Congress and the judiciary turned milestone laws on their heads. Although industrialization had changed the way society worked, "the court acted as if industrialism had changed nothing essential and the economy still consisted of open competition between small independent producers." [p871] For example,"... judges appropriated the democratic language of Jacksonianism, which had sought to protect the many from the few, and turned it into a legal vocabulary that protected the few from the many. Turning people into commodities was impermissible, but turning people's labor into a commodity - a piece of property to be bought and sold - was the source of progress. Freedom became the protection of property." [p 812]Likewise, the Supreme Court turned the 14th amendment on its head. The end result was that"By rendering freedom as the ability to dispose of 'property'- either labor or capital - liberal judes cast restraints on property as potential attacks on freedom. … [A]nything that restricted contract freedom - whether licensing laws, certain kinds of public health regulations, strikes, boycotts, or the closed shope - became the legal equivalents of slavery. Such restrictions violated either the rights of workers to pursue a calling or the freedom of citizens to use property as they saw fit. Old protections against seizure of property without due process morphed into the 'right' of capital to a fair expected return on investment."[p 814][Note: the term "liberal" judges should not be seen using our current terminology; it is a term to identify a group in the late 19th century.]Corporations held all the cards. Strikes were illegal and workers had no rights to negotiate salaries or work environments. The law written to maintain competition and put controls on corporations was subverted."The Sherman Antitrust Act became virtually a dead letter against corporations for much of the 1890s, but unions, which were not the original concern of the legislation, became its targets. The courts could empty laws of content and fill them with new meaning. Of thirteen decisions invoking antitrust law between 1890 and 1897, twelve involved labor unions." [p 819]This book details the dismal lives of the majority of citizens and demonstrates what happens when money and power go untethered. As I've said before - what is good for business is not necessarily good for the citizenry.In between we read about people and events that have come down through history. John Henry Brown has been memorialized as dying while racing a machine building a railroad. In truth he was most likely a prisoner rented out to the railroad and worked to death. The book also chronicles John Wesley Powell's exploration of the United States arid reaches west of the 100th meridian. We are also treated to stories about Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, General Custer and more.I see parallels between that age and our current one. The power the one percenters have over our society today is similar to that of the Gilded Age. The early 1900s ushered in the Progressive Era where many of these injustices were addressed and corrected. I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that the same will happen today.The Oxford History of the United States is a fantastic series which gives a comprehensive view of America's growth. This is a worthy entry in the series.

A Oxford History of the United States se mantém como a série que produz livros da mais alta qualidade que cobre toda a história americana.Richard White foi extremamente feliz, dando origem a um livro que cobre todas as passagens marcantes do período : os imigrantes recém-assentados no novíssimo Meio-Oeste, os presidentes ineptos de uma época marcada por uma escancarada corrupção, nascimento de magnatas acompanhado de concentração de renda e formações sindicais, o surgimento de lideranças negras, indígenas e femininas empenhadas na criação de uma agenda de uma nova sociedade, a transformação da economia americana, que saiu de um país dividido para a mais robusta economia do planeta e cidades, como Chicago, que em 1860 tinha menos de 50 mil habitantes e saltaria para mais de 1 milhão e meio até o final do século. Há também uma imponente leitura ambientalista do período retratado.Em suma, leitura recomendadíssima.

White's book easily lives up to the very high standards set by previous volumes in the "Oxford History of the United States "; and these are high standards indeed. If you don't believe me, check out the shelf full of Pulitzers this series has earned (not to mention the Parkman Prizes and the Bancrofts). This book will remain a standard work for a very long time.

It has taken me this long to read this 700+page book: you request reviews far too soon! Recently there have been several critics who have compared America's Gilded Age with the benighted state of the UK in the 2010s, and there are indeed points of similarity such as the unashamed greed of the plutocracy. This was one reason why I ordered the book. Richard White has attained deserved fame as a historian of the American West, and the book paints a vivid picture of settlers continually pressing on the frontier, mostly to the detriment of the original inhabitants of the Continent. I was rather surprised to find vital statistics displayed and discussed which convincingly illustrated that living and working conditions, health status, expectation of life etc. were generally worse in the USA, including the cities of the Eastern Seaboard, than in Europe and the UK during the same period - I thought that it was the other way around. It is a well-written book, although its title seems to me opaque, unfortunately

Ich finde es ist eines der besten, wenn nicht das beste Buch aus der Reihe. Nur schade, dass man immer so lange auf die Herausgabe der einzelnen Bände warten muss. Ich würde gern wissen, wann der -chronologisch - nächste Band erscheint. Die Besiedlung des Westen ist eine sehr spannende Era in der Geschichte der USA. R. White hat einen sehr lebhaften, eingängigen Erzählstil. Bitte aber unbedingt fortsetzen lassen mit der Geschichte um T. Roosevelt. Hoffentlich bald. Gern auch vom gleichen Autor!

The volumes in the Oxford History of the United States are really, really good but they are also really, really long. This volume, covering reconstruction and the gilded age at 900+pages, is no exception. The volume begins with the funeral of Abraham Lincoln and ends with the 1896 election. This lengthy volume is, however, not really long enough to do justice to the profound and dramatic events during this era. In a clever touch, the author concludes with a discussion of The Wizard of Oz and how it reflected the Gilded Age.Topics covered include:1) The failure of reconstruction and the disastrous presidency of Andrew Johnson.2) The expansion of the country westward and the tragedy that befell the Indian population there. It also discusses the mining industry and cowboys.3) The growth of the US economy and the industrialization of the nation. It also addresses the many depressions and economic problems during this period.4) The labor movement and the many strikes during the period as well as industry's efforts in exploiting workers5) Immigration and the tensions between various ethnic groups6) The development of the cities7) Cultural and religious developments including the birth of the temperance movement.8) The debates over the gold standard and tariffs.Although the book covers all of these topics and more, many of the most critical topics are covered in a cursory fashion leaving the reader with too little understanding of the topic. The author does a good job of describing the positions of people on both sides of the issues but provides little evaluation of the accuracy of those those positions.