Fergus Bordewich
Author of Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America
About the Author
Fergus M. Bordewich is the author of several books, including America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in history. He lives in San Francisco. Visit him at FergusBordewich.com.
Works by Fergus Bordewich
America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union (2012) 226 copies
The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (2016) 183 copies
Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century (1996) 179 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1947-11-01
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Washington, D.C., USA
Yonkers, New York, USA - Education
- City College of New York
Columbia University
New School for Social Research - Occupations
- historian
author - Agent
- Elyse Cheney (Elyse Cheney Literary Associates)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 15
- Members
- 1,613
- Popularity
- #15,973
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 32
- ISBNs
- 57
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 2
And it was a reality. Sort of. For a little while. The reader learns about many of the new elected officials, many newly emancipated, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, and the ways their activism pushed forward the civil rights agenda.
Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, there’s a backlash, and it is this that forms the bulk of this book. Alongside the stories of brave people who fought for equal rights are the stories of people who believed in both segregation and subjugation, and the violence they perpetrated in pursuit of their goals. There are numerous descriptions of lynchings, assaults, brutality, and cruelty as the KKK became more organized.
Readers will learn the many ways in which the KKK of the 1860s and 1870s was different from what we now think of the Klan, and may be surprised to find out the Klan was essentially dormant from the late 19th century until the early 1920s, at which point it was increasing immigration that provided the impetus for the resurrection of the Klan into what we know today.
Readalikes: The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era by Douglas R. Egerton
The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction by Mark Wahlgren Summers
Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877 by Brenda Wineapple… (more)