ABSTRACT
Eric Foner’s objective when writing Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 “was to drive the final nail into the coffin of the Dunning School,” exploding William A. Dunning’s argument that black people were simply incapable of meeting the responsibility that came with their liberation, offering instead “an alternative account of the era.” Foner does a masterful job of crafting a compelling account of history that advances the earlier work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Kenneth Stampp, and other historical revisionists. His original contribution shows that Reconstruction was a struggle over economic resources, in which the North sought to extend its free labor ideology, black people struggled to gain economic autonomy, and Southern plantation owners were determined to regain and protect their power and privileges. Since the United States became an independent nation in 1776, American leaders from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama have highlighted the country’s core value of freedom.
