The 10th entry in the series, covering the United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, may be the most erudite and sweeping of them all — as well as among the most timely, reminding during a time of turmoil that the divisive tensions of race and class inequities, economic upheaval, and regional schisms have deep, tangled roots ... a rich and breathtaking portrait of a country that, from Reconstruction on, really was under construction ... Above all this volume reminds us that the last third of the 19th century, populated by forgettable presidents, was no blank page in history ... This is a great and grand story, punctuated by debates over tariffs and taxes, pockmarked by corruption and congressional failures, and around it all swirled questions of race and the small dramas of farmers and miners, pioneers and politicians, suffragettes and suffering masses, railroads and reformers. It is a large bite White has assumed, and a major commitment for the reader, but its rewards and lessons, too, are great and grand.
In the course of Mr. White’s overarching political and economic narrative, he draws sharp portraits of the men and women who peopled the Gilded Age. He is especially good at bringing color to the era’s monochromatic politicians ... Mr. White manages to make even the development of urban sewage and water systems engrossing through his deft interweaving of engineering challenges, hard-nosed city politics and shifting social values ... His gimlet-eyed views of capitalism are often on display in The Republic for Which It Stands, as are his ingrained sympathies for workers over speculators and Native Americans over the politicians and business interests that decided their fate. But Mr. White is too careful a historian to lapse into crude polemics or to sacrifice nuance for the sake of an agenda. If he is sometimes excessively caustic in his judgment of corporate behavior, he nonetheless renders the formation of a Gilded Age America—in all its social and economic tumult—with the complexity it deserves.
The idea of home is a principle, a rallying cry, an ideal; and it’s one of the adroit symbols organizing Richard White’s The Republic for Which It Stands, a sweeping new history of the three teeming decades known as American Reconstruction and the Gilded Age … The Republic for Which It Stands demonstrates White’s subtle understanding of a period that may once have been regarded as ‘historical flyover country’—and of the American West … From a certain point of view, White’s history is also a history of Republicanism. One of the many merits of his book is his careful delineation of the underlying tensions in the party of Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War … White’s Gilded Age chronicle comes to its close as he returns to the image of Abraham Lincoln, whose sudden death in 1865 inaugurated the period. By the end of the nineteenth century, the country no longer belonged to Lincoln.
...[a] comprehensive and masterful study of the period ... White excels at providing telling statistics to illustrate his points ... Continental development, White argues, allowed commentators to shift the narrative of Reconstruction from the failure to subdue Southern Democrats and protect the freedmen from exploitation and oppression to a story of successful nation building and westward expansion. Indians would be exterminated or assimilated and forced to cede their lands. White points out that in seizing Indian homelands, the United States acted as an imperial power. American imperialism in the era, however, is a theme left underdeveloped ... The ideal of the frontier has long captured the American imagination. At the end of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Huck decides to 'light out for the Territory ahead of the rest,' to leave behind the conflict and chaos of civilization for the freedom of the frontier. It’s a pleasing fantasy, but The Republic for Which It Stands makes it abundantly clear that Huck would find little respite there.
...superb ... His brilliant and sweeping exploration focuses on the big picture as well as on individuals, including the true stories behind legends like John Henry, Buffalo Bill and another courageous and very impressive Henry Adams, a freed slave who fought racism in Louisiana. White touches on some deeply ingrained myths ... White’s masterful book offers a treasure trove of information about a pivotal time in American history, crafted with a compelling combination of well-written recreations of events and careful analysis based on the latest historical research. The Republic for Which It Stands is the best available guide to the period.
[White] tells this tumultuous story with authority, an eye for detail, and a dash of moral outrage ... Perceived threats to this vision spawned waves of counter-reaction—the murder of blacks in the Reconstruction South, the temperance movement, fear of immigrants, and mistrust of labor unions—as industrialization and mechanization leached independence from workers and consolidated power in the hands of business titans. By the end of the era, these forces had created a more complicated world. Contemporary readers will find that this era casts a long shadow over the present.
White offers important scholarship on the 'Greater Reconstruction'—i.e., conquering the West by bold federal policies like the railway acts and land grant legislation that created new infrastructure and schools and offered free farms for those able to work the land. At the same time, reformers pushed for enormously important social changes. Wage labor, wealth inequality, and immigration created class conflict that erupted in strikes in the late 1880s, while the concept of 'home' took on new significance for whites and blacks alike. A highly qualified historian offers a dense, sweeping history of a nation on the move.
White manages to imbue these ignoble years with the importance that they’re due ... White covers the whole country, opening with Lincoln and closing with William McKinley’s 1896 election as president. He offers a brilliant chapter on the meaning of home, and though the book generally pays greater attention to the on-the-ground facts of the era than on its intellectual or cultural shifts, that’s a small matter measured against the book’s strengths. White’s great achievement is to capture the drabbest, least-redeeming three decades of American history with unimpeachable authority.
