 | The Great Task Remaining Before Us: Reconstruction as America''s Continuing Civil War Subjects: Reconstruction (U.S. history 1865–1877); Reconstruction (U.S. history 1865–1877) -- Social aspects; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865–1918; Southern States -- Social conditions -- 1865–1945; Memory -- Social aspects -- United States -- History; ; Through informative case studies, this illuminating book remaps considerations of the Civil War and Reconstruction era by charting the ways in which the needs, interests, and experiences of going to war, fighting it, and making sense of it informed and directed politics, public life, social change, and cultural memory after the war's end. In doing so, it shows that "the war" did not actually end with Lee's surrender at Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination in Washington. As the contributors show, major issues remained, including defining "freedom"; rebuilding the South; integrating women and blacks into postwar society, culture, and polities; deciding the place of the military in public life; demobilizing or redeploying soldiers; organizing a Paul A. Cimbala is Professor of History at Fordham University and editor of the Press's series The North's Civil War and Reconstructing America. |
