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Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 Paperback – January 1, 1998

by W. E. Burghardt Du Bois (Author), David Levering Lewis (Introduction)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 947 ratings
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The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time.

This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 has justly been called a classic.
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  1. Part of series
    Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois
  2. Print length
    768 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Free Press
  5. Publication date
    January 1, 1998
  6. Dimensions
    5.5 x 2.25 x 8.25 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0684856573
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0684856575
  9. See all details
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Popular Highlights in this book
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  1. The system of slavery demanded a special police force and such a force was made possible and unusually effective by the presence of the poor whites.
    Highlighted by 376 Kindle readers
  2. The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.
    Highlighted by 350 Kindle readers
  3. Seven per cent of the total population of the South in 1860 owned nearly 3 million of the 3,953,696 slaves.
    Highlighted by 243 Kindle readers
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Du Bois’s mode of analysis can help us …look past so much of the ephemera of our politics to focus on what matters most: the roles of power, privilege and, most important, capital in shaping our political order and structuring our conflicts with one another.” —Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times

About the Author

William Edward Burghardt “W. E. B.” Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; 12.2.1997 edition (January 1, 1998)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 768 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0684856573
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0684856575
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 2.25 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 947 ratings

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  1. W. E. B. Du Bois

    W. E. B. Du Bois

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    William Edward Burghardt “W. E. B.” Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community.

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  2. David L. Lewis

    David L. Lewis

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
947 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

PJ
5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for understanding the origins of currant US race relations.
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2024
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Read this highly informative summary of the tragic years following the Civil War and you will perhaps begin to understand some of the complexities of race relations in America in 2023. Dr. Du Boise was a brilliant writer, historian and sociologist with a truly unique perspective of someone who witnessed and experienced the turmoil first hand. Hundreds of references and quotations from period sources. This book will leave you with an urge to know more about the events and people who shaped today’s society more than one hundred fifty years ago.
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Darryl
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read! Awesome historical record.
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2023
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This was one of my required books for one of my classes at my University.
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James Ferguson
5.0 out of 5 stars The Crucible of Civil Rights
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2004
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Du Bois took a revolutionary new look at Reconstruction in the 1930's, providing a fresh view that went largely ignored until recent books by Foner and Litwack resuscitated this overlooked period in American history. Du Bois summons up his great intellectual bearing to illustrate that from being the unmitigated failure that Reconstruction has long been portrayed as, it was the crucible of civil rights legislation, a time when there was very definitely hope that America would redefine itself along more egalitarian lines. While the book deals predominately with the black man's point of view, Du Bois offers a principled Marxist view of labor relations at the time, and how the leading Radical Republicans tried to come to terms with the new industrial society that was emerging in America.
Du Bois was a very compelling writer, he cuts through the layers of history to reveal the soul of the persons most greatly affected by Reconstruction. He charts the troubled waters of the Civil War, and the Presidential attempts at Reconstruction which followed the Union victories in the South. He provides a candid view of Lincoln, who struggled with his own prejudices, but eventually came to accept the black man because of the pivotal role he played in the war. Ironically, Du Bois noted a black did not become a man until he showed he could hold a gun in battle.
Du Bois felt Lincoln really did alter his views during the course of the war, no longer favoring the colonist view held by many that blacks should be repatriated to Africa. However, Du Bois felt that Lincoln lacked the convictions to really push forward Reconstruction, that his principal concern remained in reclaiming the Southern states in the Union.
The mighty task of Reconstruction was left up to the Radical Republicans in Congress and the "Black" legislatures that emerges in the South during this time. Du Bois refutes the Dunning-Bowers view that blacks were incapable of forming governments, by providing a chapter on "The Black Proletariat in South Carolina." Here, he shows that blacks fully recognized the enormity of this most propitious moment, but that they ran up against a set of state and federal courts, which refused to hold up their decisions. While blacks were now members of state legislatures and of the US Congress, they did not take over the South, as is often described. Even in South Carolina, where blacks outnumbered whites, blacks were only temporarily able to seize control of the legislature, and force a new state constitution.
This is the book that forms the basis for Foner's excellent book, Reconstruction. Du Bois was the first to realize that Reconstruction was more than just an epilog to the Civil War, but the beginning of the long road to freedom, which took nearly 100 years in the making for blacks in America.
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Snolion
5.0 out of 5 stars A Black viewpoint, published in 1935
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2020
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HIGHLY Recommend for all, especially high schoolers. Well written, and full of great history lessons. duBois wrote long enough after reconstruction to get a good perspective, but soon enough after that he has lots of pertinent sources. This book shows how black people, the majority former slaves, responded to the call of reconstruction after the war between the States. They were, for the most, sincere, thoughtful, honest, and eager to become free citizens. They were the majority in three Southern states, and large minorities in most of the others. They were asked to become part of the leadership from towns to Congress and performed admirably until the military & Freedman's Bureau were removed from the south in the late 1870's. duBois book shows different attitudes towards racial differences in different parts of the Country at the time.
duBois' ideas from the Marxist philosophy of labor vs. capital that was gaining attention in the mid 1800's run alongside his history of the period. He laments that black & white labor were not able to combine politically and he explains how the prompting of increased racism prevented that combination.
This book is a great clue to the puzzle of how we got to where we are today.
34 people found this helpful
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Patrick Duggan
5.0 out of 5 stars Countering Revisionist History
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2014
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It is not widely known that W.E.B. DuBois was one of the most accomplished social scientists of the 20th century; that through his study of African Americans in The Philadelphia Negro, he became one of the first, if not the first socioloigists; that his book The World and Africa, is one of the most profound works on global history of his time. An important reason for DuBois great stature is reveled in what he accomplished in Black Reconstruction. DuBois locates history in all of the subjects of the time. When he talks about slavery, he tells the story through the words, bodies, and circumstances of slaves, poor whites who were the overseers and middle managers of slavery, plantation owners who were the masterminds of a slave culture and northern industrialists who envied the wealth and power of the south. DuBois was a master at identifying and using sources that speak out of the historical moment (something for which he was criticized at the original publishing of Black Reconstruction). But whether or not his critics were correct, no where else can you find authors and writings of the 19th century quoted truthfully in their unabashed belief in and support for slavery and their unashamed assurance that people of African descent were inferior to whites in every way. By including a razor sharp analysis of slavery, the socio-economics of white supremacy, and the pyscho-social dynamics of racism, DuBois always nails what is usually strangely absent or unsaid by most European social scientists of his time. For this reason, there can be no clear understanding of Reconstruction without reading DuBois Black Reconstruction.
97 people found this helpful
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Charles S
4.0 out of 5 stars Reconstruction illuminated by a great scholar
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2023
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An important history by a brilliant scholar who witnessed part of the Reconstruction era, its unfortunate and total abandonment by the nation, and the ensuing struggle for civil rights in the first half of the 20th century.
6 people found this helpful
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Professor
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2023
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Product excellent and arrived quickly
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Anthony S.
5.0 out of 5 stars great book!
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2022
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This book will give you an in depth history of reconstruction from an Afro-American perspective which I think adds to the quality of the book. W.E.B Dubois at his best! What a talented individual who gives deep perspectives.
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Americo Gomes
4.0 out of 5 stars Bom. Mas tem algumas avaliações erradas
Reviewed in Brazil on November 12, 2021
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Gostei e li
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Aberdam
5.0 out of 5 stars Incontournable
Reviewed in France on September 12, 2022
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Livre dense , difficile mais trzs important pour qui veut comprendre les USA
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars NAACP Issues
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2020
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If you want to know the history of the Negro (Du Bois's word) from the Civil War onwards, this is a thrilling and instructive narrative by a top sociologist on the problems that section of the American people have faced and are facing. I bought it because of Black Lives Matter, and although it was written in the 1930s, much of the social content still matters.
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Terrific
5.0 out of 5 stars A Sociological Standard
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2017
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A must read!
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RONALD HARRISON
4.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT BOOK
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2021
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ORIGINAL MATERIAL ON HOW AFRICAN AMERICANS WERE AFFECTED BY THESE EVENTS
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