The Rise and Fall of the Second Ameri..., Manisha Sinha
The Rise and Fall of the Second Ameri..., Manisha Sinha
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The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic
Reconstruction, 1860-1920

Author: Manisha Sinha

Narrator: Deepa Samuel

Unabridged: 42 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/11/2024


Synopsis

A groundbreaking, expansive new account of Reconstruction that fundamentally alters our view of this formative period in American history.

In The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic, acclaimed historian Manisha Sinha expands our view beyond the accepted temporal and spatial bounds of Reconstruction, which is customarily said to have begun in 1865 with the end of the war, and to have come to a close when the "corrupt bargain" of 1877 put Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House in exchange for the fall of the last southern Reconstruction state governments. Sinha's startlingly original account opens in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln that triggered the secession of the Deep South states, and takes us all the way to 1920 and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote—and which Sinha calls the "last Reconstruction amendment."

A sweeping narrative that remakes our understanding of perhaps the most consequential period in American history, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic shows how the great contest of that age is also the great contest of our age—and serves as a necessary reminder of how young and fragile our democracy truly is.

About Manisha Sinha

Manisha Sinha is the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut. Her latest book, The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition, won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize among several others and was long listed for the National Book Award for Non-Fiction.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dale on February 08, 2024

An in-depth and thoroughly researched treatise on Reconstruction. A bit long-winded in parts, with court transcript like run-down of the horrible crimes of the Klan and other white supremist groups as Reconstruction fell apart, the book overall was really well done. I did take a bit of issue with th......more

Goodreads review by Courtney on February 06, 2025

Dr Sinha expands our view and understanding of Reconstruction, arguing that the era began with Lincoln’s election and ends with the 19th amendment—Reconstruction’s final amendment. In doing so, we witness an even longer fall of the movement from 1877-1920 as a slow painful drip. This allows Dr Sinha......more

Goodreads review by Stan on December 15, 2024

Prior to Civil War, the southern slave power fundamentally directed the destiny of the American Republic, facilitated at least in part by an unfair advantage in representation baked into the Constitution with the “three-fifths clause” that counted the unenfranchised enslaved as fractional, fictional......more

Goodreads review by Carl on October 05, 2024

Yet another work about Reconstruction. As I've liked several other histories of Reconstruction better, I didn't finish this one. I'm not sure I found anything new in this one.......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on September 03, 2024

A caveat: I listened to the book and the narrator was terrible. She mispronounced both historical terminology and basic vocabulary a lot and had a rather stiff, almost AI-sounding manner of narrating. At times I had to rewind the book to figure out what a given name or term was. So my review's somew......more