Foreword by Steven Hahn
Nothing but Freedom examines the aftermath of emancipation in the South and the restructuring of society by which the former slaves gained, beyond their freedom, a new relation to the land they worked on, to the men they worked for, and to the government they lived under. Taking a comparative approach, Eric Foner examines Reconstruction in the southern states against the experience of Haiti, where a violent slave revolt was followed by the establishment of an undemocratic government and the imposition of a system of forced labor; the British Caribbean, where the colonial government oversaw an orderly transition from slavery to the creation of an almost totally dependent work force; and early 20th-century southern and eastern Africa, where a self-sufficient peasantry was dispossessed in order to create a dependent black work force.
Measuring the progress of freedmen in the post-Civil War South against that of freedmen in other recently emancipated societies, Foner reveals Reconstruction to have been, despite its failings, a unique and dramatic experiment in interracial democracy in the aftermath of slavery. Steven Hahn's timely new foreword places Foner's analysis in the context of recent scholarship and assesses its enduring impact in the 21st century.
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"How emancipation didn't mean freedom, a comparative study of the Americas from an esteemed Marxist historian." — Alex (4 out of 5 stars)
"How emancipation didn't mean freedom, a comparative study of the Americas from an esteemed Marxist historian."
" A great read about emanicipation and what happened after. "
" An informative read, and an absolute must for those misguided cats who think the Civil War evened the playing field. "
Eric Foner is the author of many award-winning books on the Civil War and Reconstruction, including the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. He is the 2020 recipient of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement. He is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University.
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