Backstory: My wife and I like to read/learn different things together so we have lots of conversations about things we learned or didn’t learn and our educational experiences. We recently stumbled on a gap in our knowledge of American history.
So what we ideally are looking for is to gather some content so that can we can explore the aftermath of the civil war. Doesn’t have to be limited to the south can include economic, political, social and or race related content as well. Specifically the time period we are interested in is immediately after peace was declared to pre civil war.
Any recommendations are welcome
The Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. just produced a PBS documentary on Reconstruction in the Spring. It's quite good, though I think it's difficult to beat a book for a topic as complex as Reconstruction. There are two books that I found particularly convincing and valuable when I was reading for my qualifying exams a few years back: Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 which is the modern gold standard for the field and C. Vann Woodward's Origins of the New South which looks at southern history in the post-reconstruction period. If you're looking for a brilliant book that functions as both a history and a historical document, WEB DuBois' Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 still holds up remarkably well for a book written in the 1930s.
I enjoyed West from Appomattox by Heather Cox Richardson.