WEST from APPOMATTOX: THE RECONSTRUCTION of AMERICA after the CIVIL WAR (kindle) by Heather Cox Richardson
Published in 2007.
Heather Cox Richardson is a historian I have only recently discovered because of her prolific social media presence that she developed while under Covid lockdown. She writes a daily news summary of a few paragraphs with a view towards how these events match up with historical events or trends. Plus, she takes questions from people and develops a one hour daily online lecture. They are interesting, sometimes rambling little presentations and this book shares a lot of the same features.
Richardson is looking at the time right after the Civil War in American History. In the history books, Reconstruction, the Old West, the Gilded Age and the Spanish-American War are all treated a separate things. Combining all of these typical divisions of American history into one book makes for a more comprehensive study of the time period.
Heather Cox Richardson is a historian I have only recently discovered because of her prolific social media presence that she developed while under Covid lockdown. She writes a daily news summary of a few paragraphs with a view towards how these events match up with historical events or trends. Plus, she takes questions from people and develops a one hour daily online lecture. They are interesting, sometimes rambling little presentations and this book shares a lot of the same features.
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| Teddy Roosevelt (center with glasses) and the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War |
Traditionally, they are studied separately - in a typical history book they are literally different chapters. Mostly, Richardson does this, too. Mostly - but she is very willing to cross over to the other areas of study.
For example, it really impossible to understand the Old West without having an understanding of Reconstruction and of the Gilded Age. Reconstruction encouraged a lot of people to move West. The West received attention and governmental support for economic development and the South did not. The economic growth in the Northeast was largely possible because of Federal Government support of resource extraction from the West. Federal support of settlement of the West and Federal support of building a network of privately owned railroads helped spur further economic growth in the Northeast.
Due to the overlapping nature of the book, there are a lot of overlapping stories and themes. I don't consider it to be a weakness, though. I consider it to be a reminder that the same policies, the same movements and the same rules were affecting the whole country.
This time period was truly the transition from the old Revolutionary Era politics to our current modern political system because slavery was finally out of the way. Instead of discussing what to do about slavery it became a discussion about when (or even if) government power should be used to intervene in the free market or to help certain people in society.
In the South, pushing for public schools for poor children was often decried as Socialist because rich people were being taxed to provide a basic education for the children of the poor. It was even more Socialist if it meant funding schools for poor black children. Meanwhile, out in the Western states the government actively intervened in the Free Market by handing out 160 acre parcels of land, providing land grants to fund railroads and breaking treaties with Native Americans and clearing them out of the way to provide access to mineral wealth.
The point about Socialism is interesting. Richardson pointed out something that I have noticed about American political discussions - we throw about the term Socialism and use it with a completely different meaning than the meaning the rest of the world uses. When everyone discusses Socialism, they are talking about the government owning the means of production (factories, farms, mines, etc.). In the United States, it is tossed about when we talk about taxing anyone to pay for community services and we have done that ever since the time period this book covers. I still hear this argument used against the existence of public schools, public libraries and even public roads. In the United States, Socialism is also a term used to describe non-economic things such as Covid mask mandates and gay marriage because the term has consistently been used by the current conservative party (the Dems back in the 1800s and the GOP nowadays) to discredit new concepts.
I rate this history 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WEST from APPOMATTOX: THE RECONSTRUCTION of AMERICA after the CIVIL WAR (kindle) by Heather Cox Richardson.
For example, it really impossible to understand the Old West without having an understanding of Reconstruction and of the Gilded Age. Reconstruction encouraged a lot of people to move West. The West received attention and governmental support for economic development and the South did not. The economic growth in the Northeast was largely possible because of Federal Government support of resource extraction from the West. Federal support of settlement of the West and Federal support of building a network of privately owned railroads helped spur further economic growth in the Northeast.
Due to the overlapping nature of the book, there are a lot of overlapping stories and themes. I don't consider it to be a weakness, though. I consider it to be a reminder that the same policies, the same movements and the same rules were affecting the whole country.
This time period was truly the transition from the old Revolutionary Era politics to our current modern political system because slavery was finally out of the way. Instead of discussing what to do about slavery it became a discussion about when (or even if) government power should be used to intervene in the free market or to help certain people in society.
In the South, pushing for public schools for poor children was often decried as Socialist because rich people were being taxed to provide a basic education for the children of the poor. It was even more Socialist if it meant funding schools for poor black children. Meanwhile, out in the Western states the government actively intervened in the Free Market by handing out 160 acre parcels of land, providing land grants to fund railroads and breaking treaties with Native Americans and clearing them out of the way to provide access to mineral wealth.
The point about Socialism is interesting. Richardson pointed out something that I have noticed about American political discussions - we throw about the term Socialism and use it with a completely different meaning than the meaning the rest of the world uses. When everyone discusses Socialism, they are talking about the government owning the means of production (factories, farms, mines, etc.). In the United States, it is tossed about when we talk about taxing anyone to pay for community services and we have done that ever since the time period this book covers. I still hear this argument used against the existence of public schools, public libraries and even public roads. In the United States, Socialism is also a term used to describe non-economic things such as Covid mask mandates and gay marriage because the term has consistently been used by the current conservative party (the Dems back in the 1800s and the GOP nowadays) to discredit new concepts.
I rate this history 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WEST from APPOMATTOX: THE RECONSTRUCTION of AMERICA after the CIVIL WAR (kindle) by Heather Cox Richardson.
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