After reading Reconstruction after the Civil War by John Hope Franklin, I have a completely new perspective on Reconstruction. Some may say that this book, regardless of its historical contribution to Reconstruction, attempts to demolish William Dunning's myth of white supremacy. It is also a very serious attempt to be fair and objective about a very controversial time when race, politics, and ideology played a very different role in society. It depends precisely on Franklin's ability to deal with these three questions; race, ideology and politics. This makes his book interesting and very different from other books written on the subject. Franklin's work was embraced because everyone knew the obvious disadvantage freed former slaves had in a society in which they had never learned how to live. Although in his book the racist implications of Southern whites are obvious, he devotes very few pages to explaining the definition. of inequality; there were other things that mattered, such as the economy and the Southern oligarchy's fear of losing power. At the end of the war, Lincoln was trying to pass bills and rebuild the Union. The president, according to Franklin, "worked hard to get his restoration plan accepted" and wrote letters to military leaders and civil authorities, making suggestions but no demands. In the defeated South there was a clear sense of invasion from the North and strong resistance to acceptance of the new political scene. In Franklin's words, the achievements of Reconstruction were made during the war and not in the postwar years. If we read carefully the chapter "The Era Begins to End", we might notice a sense of lost opportunity and see the description...... middle of paper ...... construction Franklin was still making an effort to understand an excellent and complex political reality. In a book without footnotes, it is still easy to find important dates and a large amount of interesting bibliography. The story is very well done and the style, although purely academic, is also fluid, and the length is not too long: the author has written a complete short story without intending to exhaust the reader. The reconstruction is, for better or for worse. , a crucial period in American history because it reminds us of the dark side of American growth, as well as the exploitation and suffering of a race. African Americans, in their struggle for equality, view Reconstruction as a pivotal moment in their own history. Although I'm not a huge fan of history, this book caught my attention and I highly recommend it to any history buff..