The Age of Reconstruction, Don H. Doyle
The Age of Reconstruction, Don H. Doyle
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

The Age of Reconstruction
How Lincoln’s New Birth of Freedom Remade the World

Author: Don H. Doyle

Narrator: Paul Brion

Unabridged: 10 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/11/2024


Synopsis

How Union victory in the American Civil War inspired democratic reforms, revolutions, and emancipation movements globally

In this international history of Reconstruction, Don Doyle chronicles the world events inspired by the Civil War. Between 1865 and 1870, France withdrew from Mexico, Russia sold Alaska to the US, and Britain proclaimed the new state of Canada. British workers demanded more voting rights, Spain toppled Queen Isabella II and ended slavery in its Caribbean colonies, Cubans rose against Spanish rule, France overthrew Napoleon III, and the kingdom of Pope Pius IX fell before the Italian Risorgimento. Some European liberals even called for a "United States of Europe." Yet for all its achievements and optimism, this "new birth of freedom" was short-lived. By the 1890s, Reconstruction had been undone in the US and abroad and America had become an exclusionary democracy based on white supremacy—and a very different kind of model to the world.

At home and abroad, America's Reconstruction was, as W. E. B. Du Bois wrote, "the greatest and most important step toward world democracy of all men of all races ever taken in the modern world." The Age of Reconstruction is a bracing history of a remarkable period when democracy, having survived the great test of the Civil War, was ascendant around the Atlantic world.

About Don H. Doyle

Don H. Doyle is McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He is the author or editor of several books, including The Cause of All Nations and Secession as an International Phenomenon.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emma on November 15, 2024

skimmed most of this for class but i need a goodreads win so......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on January 07, 2025

Doyle is really a master of the international history of the Reconstruction Era. This is a great follow up to The Cause of All Nations, his book on the global history of the Civil War. His argument is that the Civil War and Reconstruction era tipped the balance of power and momentum in the trans-atl......more

Goodreads review by Eric on February 10, 2025

Really fascinating look at how the Union victory in the Civil War (and the subsequent assassination of Abraham Lincoln) changed political dynamics outside of the United States -- especially in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, throughout South America, and among the western European colonial powers. Loved it!......more