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binstonbirchill's review against another edition
5.0
Reconstruction. I’ve known what it was since grade school but hardly knew any details. Du Bois traces the history in the southern states of the postwar years. The successes and stumbles and the unimaginable cruelty. The economic fights of laborers both black and white, the right to education, the questions of land ownership, and the right to vote and hold office. Nothing less than true democracy is at stake. He puts the economic questions in socialist terms and it is really hard to argue that given the enslavement of millions that a break from at all times wasn’t called for. A reset. A reset rather than implementing a new system. Du Bois sees a lot of good that came from Reconstruction. If it had been continued instead of rejected in the most harmful manner imaginable he sees the world as being a very different place. A world war averted. Skin tone based oppression viewed in a different light. It is hard to argue his points.
One of the best and most important history books I’ve read, and for what it’s worth I’ve read a few hundred. W.E.B. Du Bois is one of those people whose name I was familiar with but didn’t know much beyond him being a writer, a thinker and an African American. Thankfully that has been rectified and I will certainly be acquiring John Brown and The Souls of Black Folk.
I plan to read Eric Foner’s book on Reconstruction later this year to compare how scholarship views things decades after Du Bois’ masterpiece.
One of the best and most important history books I’ve read, and for what it’s worth I’ve read a few hundred. W.E.B. Du Bois is one of those people whose name I was familiar with but didn’t know much beyond him being a writer, a thinker and an African American. Thankfully that has been rectified and I will certainly be acquiring John Brown and The Souls of Black Folk.
I plan to read Eric Foner’s book on Reconstruction later this year to compare how scholarship views things decades after Du Bois’ masterpiece.
tomtwin10's review against another edition
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
Loved this book. Both the information and methodology are essential for anyone interested in Marxism, this is a comprehensive history of the period.
binaverklempt's review against another edition
5.0
it is impossible to fully understand american history without this book and it’s interventions. DuBois’ wields his mastery of marxism as well as his impossibly thorough and brilliant scholarship to shine light on the inner workings of civil war/reconstruction era economics and politics, investigating how Northern Capital and the Southern Slaveocracy, along with white collaborators of all class strata, colluded to destroy the radical Black mission of Reconstruction and enshrine the Jim/Jane Crow racial apartheid systems. DuBois also outlines how Black people’s militancy in various general strikes/work stoppages as well as armed struggle against slave holders, not white benevolence, was the deciding factor in turning the civil war into a war for their own liberation. DuBois’ writing helps us understand that today we live in an era of the unfinished civil war and project of reconstruction.
inframaterialist's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most important books I think I've ever read. I think about it at least once a week still. Could not more highly recommend.
breadandmushrooms's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
wyliem's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Racism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Classism, Genocide, Kidnapping, Racial slurs, and Police brutality