A Prize-Winning Book Revisited

Reviews A Prize-Winning Book Revisited* Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1988). Nell Irvin Painter In a democracy like the United States in which the apparently jarring presence of race and radsm has been with us since before the beginning of the state, a topic Uke Reconstruction after the Civü War comes to acquire a long historiographical lineage. The continued salience of racism in American tife lends the history of Reconstruction an enduring attraction as well as a string of varying and contradidory interpretations. Published in the spring of 1988, Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution marks a watershed in that historiography, succeeding briUiantly in its aim of presenting a comprehensive and modern treatment of its subject within a national context. Building upon an incredible base of primary sources, Foner also graciously pays tribute to other historians in chapter headings and subheadings that echo book titles of W.E.B. Du Bois, John Hope Franklin, Eugene Genovese, WuUe Lee Rose, and others. Such abundant and selfconsdous documentation cuts at least two ways, however, for whüe this method lends the book enormous historiographical resonance, it simultaneously produces take-no-prisoner footnotes. At two inches of notes per page, such aggressive footnoting humbles the reader and discourages impertinent queries. Foner's periodization reflects one of his fundamental themes: the centrality of what the calls "the black experience," to which I wül return. This emphasis doubles the book's scope, however, for Reconstruction intends to be more than a history of Reconstruction after the Civü War. It strives, as weU, to present a history of the meaning of emandpation, and I © 1991 Journal of Women's History, Vol 2 No. 3 (Winter)__________________ *With this review, the JOURNAL OF WOMEN'S HISTORY adds a new feature to its REVIEW section; that of taking a second look at prizewinning books from a feminist perspective. Foner's book has won the Bancroft Prize, the Parkman Prize, the Avery O. Craven Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Trilling Prize, and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the U.S. Outstanding Book Award. These comments were first delivered at the 1988 convention of the Southern Historical Assodation. 1991 Review: Nell Irvin Painter 127 wül return to what I see as an unresolved tension in this regard as weU. Suffice it here to note that Foner's focus on black people affeds the shape of the book from the outset. Instead of beginning in 1865 with Presidential Reconstruction, as it would have a generation ago, Foner's Reconstruction starts in 1863 with the Emandpation Prodamation. The first four chapters deal largely with the freed people in a manner that is both clear and nuanced. This section of the book ripples with keywords such as "ambiguity," "tension," and "conftid." Such words indicate the many contradictions between postwar realities and the free labor ideology that is one of Foner's speciaUties. He also has a keen sense of the unintended consequences that flowed from conflicting interests and competing daims. Explaining the meaning of freedom, Foner says that the very term was subjed to multiple interpretations that were conflicting and that changed over time. He recognizes the contradictions buried in elite Southern economic thought; whüe capitalist development required a mobUe work force, for instance, free labor was anathema to Southern employers determined to immobilize black workers. Weaving together economic and racial matters, Foner very rightly sees much of what has been caUed race relations as labor relations. He pursues his insights north of the Mason and Dixon line to improve on current labor historiography that pretends that Northern workers were immune to their country's characteristic failing. Foner understands that slavery was fundamentaUy a labor system (from the point of view of the employers/owners, at least, although he does not supply the conditional phrase). This means that he does not confuse radsm and white supremacy with class bias. It also means that he understands how violence and fraud could serve broad economic as weU as radal ends. BuUding on the comparative history that charaderized his insightful Herning lectures,1 Foner is alert to the...