West from Appomattox

"Included in the Washington Post Book World's Holiday Guide (2007) Selected as a 2008 AAUP University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries. “Richardson tells a different story about the United States as a whole during a reconceptualized period of ‘Reconstruction’ after the Civil War.”—Sheldon Hackney, University of Pennsylvania   “Highly original, deeply researched, and important, West from Appomattox has the added advantage of being extremely well written:  Heather Cox Richardson’s prose is clear, accessible, and compelling.”—Eric Arnesen, University of Illinois at Chicago ""With a marvelous sense of scope, narrative lucidity, and thorough research, Heather Richardson makes the convincing case that Americans still live in the world that Reconstruction built—or left partly unbuilt. A skilled historian of political economy, Richardson has here written a new and important synthesis of late-nineteenth-century American society enmeshed in a great struggle to determine just what kind of country the Civil War had wrought. This book is deeply informed and a good read; it spurs our effort to help Americans realize that their reading must not stop with Appomattox.""—David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory ""A truly fresh reconsideration—and a smart and wonderfully written one—of Reconstruction. Richardson pulls back to a genuinely national perspective, and in doing so gives us a strikingly original view of this vitally important time in the national story.""—Elliott West, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville"