We are told that the present moment bears a strong resemblance to Reconstruction, the era after the Civil War when the victorious North attempted to create an interracial democracy in the unrepentant South. Historian Manisha Sinha expands our view beyond the accepted temporal and spatial bounds of Reconstruction.
Sinha tells these stories well. She also pushes out beyond the conventionally defined subjects of Reconstruction ... Sinha convincingly advances her vision of Reconstruction all the way forward to 1920.
Ambitious and expansive ... Her tone is sometimes more passionate than measured, but Ms. Sinha does vividly bring to life the thwarted hopes not only of black Southerners but of countless other idealistic Americans as well, black and white, male and female, who sought a more democratic nation, one unblemished by racial violence and economic disparities.
Rigorously researched and brilliantly argued ... If The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic is consummately persuasive in its air-tight arguments, it is equally dizzying in its topical breadth and the cumulative impact of its finely detailed storytelling.
