West from Appomattox

“The 50 years following the American Civil War often come to us as a blur of disconnected images, . . . a hiatus between the drama of the Civil War and World War I. . . . But in her ambitious West from Appomattox, Heather Cox Richardson argues that these years, far from being uneventful or insignificant, saw nothing less than the reconstruction of America, a recasting of the relationship between the government and the people. . . . Richardson’s perspective is engaging and reveals much that is fresh.”—Edward L. Ayers, Washington Post Book World “This well-written and perceptive history considers Reconstruction as a national—rather than strictly Southern—phenomenon that united the North, South, and West, and created the creed of middle-class individualism that would define the 20th century.”—Atlantic Monthly “A substantial achievement. . . . [Richardson] expertly redraws a map of post–Civil War America that only grows more complex a century-and-a-half later.”—Elizabeth Young, Chicago Tribune “An enormously impressive book. Engagingly written, based on research notable both for its depth and breadth, and arguing a bold, sweeping, and intelligent thesis. . . . A landmark contribution to our understanding of the making of the modern United States.”—Keith Cassidy, Canadian Journal of History 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 Cox 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, 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