IN THE wake of a bloody and protracted war, Americans turned their attention to the most intractable of their social problems. Influential media of news and opinion and a major political party ...

Daniel Brook has written a book that goes a long way toward injecting thoughtfulness into popular notions of the history of race and racism in... Why did Reconstruction fail? It's a heady question for ...

Once upon a time in a country somewhat resembling this one, the Republican Party had a radical faction — and not because it believed in bizarre theories about election fraud or wanted to undermine ...

Reconstruction of the South, 1857. Library of Congress. January 1: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that the majority of the nation's slave population ...

The tragic legend of reconstruction -- Abraham Lincoln: the politics of a practical Whig -- Andrew Johnson: the last Jacksonian -- Triumph of the radicals -- Radical reconstruction -- Radical rule in ...

Radical members of the South Carolina legislature, 1876. (Buyenlarge / Getty Images) There is an adage that historians write with (at least) one eye fixed on the present. So it is not surprising that ...

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. Over the past few years, we at The ...